Our Process
Whilst this example guide will help you better understand the web design process, it's worth expecting that the process for your project may differ in some ways given its unique nature.
This is a long-term investment, not a short term one, so lets do it right.
Discovery
You have reached out to us by either a phone call or an email, or maybe you have jumped onto the website and already looked at the website pricing & questions page.
The next step is to collect the needed information from you to put together a Project Proposal. This includes determining the goal of your website, defining the scope of the project such as web pages and features the site requires to fulfill the goal and the timeline for building those out.
Once we're clear on these details, we'll be able to provide an indicative web design quote along with a range of implementation strategies, optional inclusion costs and a staged rollout plan.
This is the most important part of any web development process. If these questions aren’t all answered, the whole project can set off in the wrong direction.
If you are at this stage, please start here.
Do we need to have a meeting before quoting on my website?
Having a face to facing briefing about a new website can be useful but it isn't always required.
For small projects, if you've seen a few other sites which we can reference that are similar to what you want to build, we can use this to give you a ballpark cost and time frame.
For complicated projects, we will insist on you meeting with one of our web designers before we quote so that we can be confident we truly understand all the technical requirements that need to be included in your new website.
Project Approved
Here is where you review the Project Proposal. You will be sent a Welcome Email with the link to this Project Proposal, other important documentslinks and how to best work and communicate with us.
If you have any questions or issues with the Project Proposal, this is when you would discuss these with us so we can better define the document.
Once happy with it, a digital signed copy from you will be required.
Once we receive the signed copy, we will require 50% of the project upfront for new clients to lock in this project. An invoice will be emailed to you with the information to complete this step. This also helps us show you are commented to this project allowing us to move fully into the next stage.
Planning & Research
Before we start creating your website design, we go to great lengths to first understand your organisation and what it's needs are.
We research into your industry and competitors, flesh out your target personas and do any topic research needed to help define the sitemaps and page layouts.
Typically smaller budget web design projects won't include a wireframing stage. Whilst there are some exceptions to this, most small budget projects will have a restricted design phase that can't afford the extra costs associated with UX innovations. But don't worry, we know what works when it comes to working standard page layouts that produce results.
Here is also where we confirm your branding guidelines or create one if needed. Your brand guideline is where your logo, business colours and fonts are put together to create a guide on how to best use them. You would also hand this guideline to other businesses that will work for you in any marketing projects.
Design & Content
Using your branding guidelines, we create a design system that will help us quickly put together your website with the content. A design system is a series of components that can be reused in different combinations throughout the website. Design systems allow us to manage design at scale.
As for the content, this goes into your new website and can come in three different forms:
New Content
A new website will often require new content to be written, new photos to be sourced and new reference material to be obtained.
Existing Content
This is content that might already exist in some form. For example, maybe you already have some professionally written copy from a previous brochure or annual report. Likewise, it could be there is some great content on your old website that can be reused.
External Data Sources
This is content which originates from a source outside of your company. For example, it might be your website pulls in events from a third party system. This is considered an external data source.
As we build out your website, we will create a place holder for every page on your website. The content which goes into each of these pages needs to be handled by someone in some way.
The content handling at this stage is distinctly different from previous stages as it's more of a collaborative effort. Also, when our client's load in content themselves, this reduces our content handing costs and thus can help reduce your overall web design fee.
Writing high-quality content is becoming a critical requirement for new websites. Google's tools now go beyond just scanning for keywords and instead are considered to critique the engagement and interest levels of a piece of content.
As writing engaging content isn't something that comes naturally to everyone, we can help arrange a professional copywriter to assist you with creating all the new content you require for your website.
This said, people are naturally inclined to write in ways which omit opportunities to increase their Google rankings.
As we focus on the design and UI, we do not provide content (Text, images, video etc). But with our experience, we will help you understand how to write content that produces results and some of the "tricks" you need to know that will give you that SEO boost you're after.
Development
This is where we go away and built out the site fully, including many behind the scenes functionality, designs and features.
There is not much required from you during this stage as all information should be collected and ready to go by now.
This stage also will involve testing the website on as many devices as we can lay your hands on. This means tablets, phones, desktop computers, etc.
We also test on the popular web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Safari on all the devices. This is critical, as the websites our web designers build are all responsive web designs.
Review
At this phase, we ask you to start the review process so our web designers can finish building your website.
This will involve reviewing the website on as many devices as you can lay your hands on. This means tablets, phones, desktop computers, etc. It's important for you to get a feel for how your website will look under a range of different conditions.
We provided a handy feedback tool to help with this review process. This feedback tool is great because allows you to click on any part of your website and give us specific feedback relating to this individual element. This process is far easier for our clients and results in us being able to address more changes faster. You have as much time as needed to complete this, however, the faster you complete this, the faster your website can be updated and launched.
Once we receive all the feedback, we jump back into our design and development phases above and complete the requested updates. The round of reviews happens one to two times. If it continues more times, then we go into a complete revision of the project that may be out of the scope of the original project proposal.
Each page will need to be approved and locked down, allowing us to reduce the level and frequency of changes on your website so that we can find any sections that have been overlooked and correct any issues that may have popped up.
Deployment
When we chat to our clients about launching their website, we often refer to it as “flicking the switch” but there’s a little more to this process.
When a website goes live, it is the first time we will see all of your new web design code running on your live production domain. We try to have this run smoothly, however, sometimes very rarely things can go wrong - we do our best to launch the site as clean as possible.
Here is also where we set up your hosting, emails, etc
Whilst the end of the work week (Hello Friday) feels like a natural deadline to put on the launch of your website, it's generally regarded as the worst day of the week to launch something. During the working week, we have easy access to everyone who helped build your website. On weekend, however, we have limited support options.
Planning to launch your website right before we lose the majority of your support options doesn't make a lot of sense. For this reason, we encourage companies to consider launching on Mondays. No better way to start the week than with a big website launch.
After we launch a website, we generally provide a 1-3 month warranty window (depending on the project size) whereby, any issues which arise will be considered part of the website design project scope.
Finishing Up
Many of the companies we work with consider launch day to be the last time they need to think about their website. It looks the way they want it to look, it works the way they want it to work. It's done!
However, a good website is never done. You now have a powerful business tool which is capable of attracting more sales, so don't ignore it. Put it to work.
When we launch your new website, we submit your site to popular search engines. So be aware that your Google Rankings will move around quite a bit. After three to four weeks, we'll be able to see what Google has made of your new website. In some cases, you'll be doing better than expected and in other cases, you may have some keywords and pages which need extra work.
The other performance indicator you'll want to keep an eye on is your website traffic within the Google Analytics dashboard. This dashboard will show you how many visitors have been to your website and more importantly, how they are using the website.
While we are not a social media marketing business, we can help with setting up your social media accounts (or updating the profiles). This includes Facebook, Instagram, Google My Business and other important accounts to help promote your website.
You also need to be aware of software updates and ongoing website security. Everyday around the world, websites will be attacked by automatic bots, and it can be relatively easy for them to get into sites which aren’t actively maintained.
Signing up to a support plan will allow us to spend a set sometime aside every month reviewing your site's performance and then make improvements to your website to help it perform better. You also may want to have design or content requests made as well. This is where the support plan is of value to you. But don't worry - your new website warranty will include this for the first 1 month.
Think of it as Tech Support for your website.
We do encourage our clients to do a site service every six months just to help keep their website running reliably.
Frequently Asked Questions
Purchasing a domain can be done in a few ways. We offer domain management here: domains.thatwebsiteis.me
Or you can look at some of the domain registrars we recommend:
For .com.au domain extensions, we recommend: NetRegistry
For all other domain extensions, we recommend: NameCheap
Strongly advise to avoid the following Domain Registrars:
- GoDaddy
- Hostgator
- 1&1
These domain names have a bad reputation among website developers. The general advice is to avoid GoDaddy and avoid EIG-owned web hosts. EIG is famous for buying up existing web hosts that are good and making them not as good.
All monthly retainer clients will be charged a set, agreed upon fee on the 3rd of the month, every month. Hours included in the package do not roll over from month to month. This includes hours missed based on holidays or vacations taken by either party. Certain exceptions may be granted in extreme situations on a case-by-case basis.
All website support plan hours do not roll over.
Generally speaking I like to complete the first project before starting another or adding a new scope to the current project.
By focusing on one project at a time I can best manage all the moving parts and deliver the goods on our agreed upon timeline.
On a case-by-case basis additions can be discussed for an additional fee.
Depending on your needs, building a website with us can start from $800 and go to even as high as $30,000 or more. It’s important to know what type of website you are building, and what you’ll need from it (features) because that will directly affect the cost and time to complete.
Yes, Ecommerce WordPress website development built with WooCommerce is an option for a small local business website. This will get any online shop running smoothly and room for expanding in the future.
Yes, we can update or redesign your website theme or pages. This includes your shop layouts, service landing pages, blog post designs, and more.
Yes, we have a range of solutions for emails with your business for both long term and simple setups.
Ask us about our managed email service for more information.
Our websites are foundational SEO ready (UI/U, technical, and speed) but do require quality content to work well within search engines.
Foundational SEO encompasses many of the “behind the scenes” technical ingredients of a website and is one part of the three key areas of an SEO strategy (which also includes on-page and off-page SEO). Otherwise known as “technical” SEO, these elements are usually not obvious to the untrained eye but can have a huge impact to the overall success of your website.
Not fully. We provide services for Local SEO and setting up social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. SEO content should be out sourced as it requires longer marketing plans and higher budgets.
Good SEO is a result of accurate and intuitive website design. Accurate and intuitive website design is the nexus of user experience, information architecture, design, and development.
We outsource this if it is needed for new website projects.
WordPress, it is a great platform that allows us to create the features and designs our clients often need. We do not work with Wix, Shopify, Sqaurespace etc.
A typical website will take about 14 weeks at a minimum from start to launch. This includes 3 weeks discovery, 6 weeks design, 3 weeks initial development, and 2 weeks of modifications. It could take much longer if you wait until the end of the journey to provide content (writing it yourself). More on our website design process.
All businesses need regular website maintenance to attract and retain customers, maintain search engine rankings and present new information, products and services to the public. Website maintenance is also required to maintain the value of the website over time. As new security flaws are found within browsers, plugins, and WordPress itself, there is a need to update as often as possible to stay on to of it all.
We offer a monthly maintenance plan where we look after the site for you as well as make changes at your request. Pricing may change so check out the maintenance services we currently offer. Other fees (often yearly) may include website hosting, email servers, and domain name renewals.
Yes, we offer a support plan service for support and ongoing website tasks, as well as an hourly rate (contact us) for extra custom work.
Yes, we outsource logo designs and branding guides for small and growing businesses. Constant branding and a good logo will greatly improve your brand identity and is a good investment for any serious business wanting to grow.
We'd love to work with you.
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