What is your process for making websites?

There are several parts to the website-making process. This page will guide you through the different phases and give you an idea of what to expect.

Initial Meeting / Phone Call

Our first meeting will focus on getting a clear idea of the scope of the project. We need to get enough detail in order to put a proposal together.

Five things you should have ready

  1. Site structure. A list of the pages you’d like on the site.
  2. Functionality. Anything beyond static pages: email forms, blogs, photo galleries, video, e-commerce, etc…
  3. References. URLs for a few sites you like design-wise, as well as for your competition.
  4. Budget. Having a budget range to work with helps us determine if we are able to provide everything in your wishlist. We can also come up with the best plan that can fit the budget, or come up with a phased approach that will allow us to work on your project as your business grows. Choosing to withhold budget information results mostly in wasted time for both of us. It’s much more effective for everyone to know what to expect from the beginning.
  5. Timeframe. If you have a specific date you’d like to complete the project by, please let us know. Most website projects take us roughly 4-8 weeks.

Proposal

After our initial meeting we spend some time creating a detailed proposal. The process of creating this proposal helps us understand better what it is we’ll be making. We decide what technologies we will use to make your site, research solutions for new types of functionality we haven’t used before, and also determine costs and timeframe. It usually takes 2-3 business days to put together the proposal. We’ll email it to you as a PDF file.

Kick-off meeting

Once you’ve agreed to the proposal terms, we will send you an invoice for a deposit to get started and schedule a kick-off meeting or phone call. The goal of this meeting will be to get to know your company better and walk out with a very good sense of where you want to go design-wise.

Design

We start with a couple of options for the homepage first draft. Most projects include two rounds of revisions for the homepage. We go through the layouts with you, revise per your feedback and make smart recommendations when you’re undecided. Once the homepage has been approved, we design the remaining layouts. We typically create layouts only for the pages on your website that have unique layouts, and use them as a guide to build all the site’s pages. NOTE: It’s really helpful if you can provide us all of the content before we start designing. Even if it’s not 100% final, it helps us plan and design accordingly.

Programming

After the layouts have been approved, we begin building the site. We’ll have check-ins along the way to show you progress. NOTE: It is absolutely necessary for us to have final content before we start programming.

QA

We make sure your site looks good on all browsers. We currently support all modern browsers including Firefox (mac & PC), Chrome (mac & PC), Safari (mac), Internet Explorer 9 (PC). If you need to support any specific outdated browser not listed here we can do so at an additional fee.

Launch

Once everything is ready to go, we’ll send you an invoice for the remaining balance. After we’ve received payment, your site is ready to go live! We’ll migrate the beta site to your server and launch the site for the world to see.

Training

Most of our clients like to have the ability to make day-to-day content changes on their own. We strongly recommend this – it’s a good way to ensure the content on your site stays fresh and relevant, and it also saves you money on maintenance. We have a training session (either on-site or over the phone) to show you how to use the system and make content changes.

Maintenance

Your website is your most important marketing tool, and you should take good care of it. We offer maintenance plans to help keep your site secure. You should look at this as an insurance plan. Fixing sites that break because of updates or viruses can be time-consuming and expensive. Our ongoing maintenance plans will ensure your site has the latest security patches and is always up to date. Some plans also include time for website updates.

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