Whenever you take on a big task, knowing what to expect at each step before you start can help conquer any small hurdles you experience along the way. By having a clear roadmap and laying the groundwork, you will greatly improve the quality of your website and speed up the overall production time.

1. Planning and Strategy

If your website basically an online brochure it has very little chance of standing out in the crowded Internet marketplace. After all, there are nearly 1.14 billion websites in existence and over 250,000 new websites are created everyday.

The most important building block of any website is knowing the intent of your users. Even when someone is shopping for something they are generally seeking information, not advertising, about those products and services.

You should take a great amount of time thinking about what you want to accomplish with your website. Take into consideration any special functionality you would like to achieve before contacting a design firm; you will save yourself more time and money.

If you are stuck, check out these 9 Informative Elements of a Successful Website.

2. Submit Your Ideas to a Designer

When you have a plan ready, contact us for a free website consultation. It is critical you be as detailed as possible when discussing your ideas with your designer, they may have specific questions to help clarify exactly what you would like to do with your website.

3. Create a Project Roadmap

After laying the initial groundwork, an agreement will made on the project details and a Website Design Contract will be drafted for your review. Web design projects are typically priced on the number of sections within the website, and any add-on customization such as plugins or scripting.

You will need a color scheme, logos/photos, and content you wish to use before the designer can get started. If you do not have a logo or website content, we can provide that for you as part of your consultation. All projects are scheduled in the order they are received but your project can be expedited.

When you are ready to start, provide us with a start-up deposit of 40% of the contract price. The remainder of your balance will be billed in units at each substantial project completion. Once your deposit is received, you will be provided with a copy of the fully executed contract, along with a receipt for your start-up deposit and project start date.

4. Review Design Concepts

Shortly after the project is started, you’ll be provided with a design concept that includes a landing page and an inner-content page. In most cases, your website concept will be ready within just a few business days from the start date of your project.

When the initial concept is done, we will continue to modify the template to your specifications until the final look is achieved. In the rare instance you are not satisfied with the initial concept, we will take your feedback and build another template from scratch.

5. Setup Hosting

After the template is completed, the remaining content pages can be created to finish the site. For new companies and startups, you will need to setup a web hosting account and an internet domain name before the public can access your website.

Your internet domain is what users type in the address bar of a web browser to access your website. The web host is where your actual website files are stored and accessed via a domain name on the internet.

Established companies with active websites will already have this infrastructure in place. If you do not have either of these, we can walk you through some options at the planning process. All necessary files are copied to your servers, and you will be sent a backup copy containing your completed project files.

6. Monitor and Fix

After your website goes live on your domain, minor adjustments are included for no charge, up to two weeks after your project is completed. Minor changes include bug fixes, modifying text content, and the adding or changing of photos. Any major revisions or additional content pages may require an additional charge.