Video Transcription:
What are the steps to building a website? Getting a new website design can seem overwhelming right? There are too many steps lots of moving pieces, and if you've ever had a project go wrong you know that it can be a huge mess.
You don't have to be a trained web designer to know how the process works. If you want to know our four-step proven process to make your next web project go smoothly, keep watching.
Hi I'm Tom Malesic founder and President of EZMarketing and you're watching Ask EZ. This is where small business owners go to get real answers to their marketing questions.
4-Step Proven Web Design Process
- Plan
- Design
- Build
- Go Live
We're going to go into each of those steps.
Step 1 - Plan
The first step is the Plan. It's the most important part of the website design process. Building a website without a plan is kind of like building a house without a blueprint. It'd be an absolute disaster.
So what's involved in the plan? We start with a discovery or client kickoff meeting, and we like to take this one step further and do a full Marketing Strategy Session where we can really learn about your business.
Next we review the site map, so these are all the pages that are going to be on your website. Then we pull that together what we call a Scope of Work, where we all agree on what work needs to be done.
And finally we need to gather all your materials. These are things like your logo, any photos that you'd like us to use, maybe you have existing copy that we can pull from. And then any kind of login credentials that you have to your current website. These are all the things that we need so that we can do a great job on your website design.
Oftentimes, people just want to jump right in to build the website and, they skip that planning step. This is absolutely a critical step; you don't want to skip it!
Step 2 - Design
Our second step is Design — creating a look and feel of your website that you're going to be really happy with.
So what's involved in designing your website? We start with a home page mock-up. Our web designer will create a design that's based on what we've learned from our Marketing Strategy Session.
Next you're going to get to review the design, and we're normally going to go through a couple rounds of edits. Sometimes this is where the process can get a little bogged down, especially if you have different preferences from your website designer or from other stakeholders on your team. But it's important to remember that your number one priority is to create a website design that appeals to your customer not everyone's personal preference.
Finally you're going to approve the web design. You should feel confident of how the site will look and feel before we start to build the site.
Step 3 - Build
Our third step is the Build. This is where the coding begins. We turn your design into a fully working website.
We really start with writing copy, so depending on who you hire you may have to do all the copy writing yourself. We write all the copy for you with professional sales copywriters, because we know that messaging is a critical part in building your website.
Next, we build all the pages, so we build the framework, and we create every single page in the site. We might have some kind of custom programming that needs to be done.
Then you're going to get to actually review the site as it's being built, and we give that to you in a beta version. You can make edits from there, so that you actually get to see the site be built right in front of you.
Step 4 - Go Live
Our fourth and final step is to Go Live. This is my favorite part (and hopefully your favorite part). It's time to launch your site!
But before we go live, we make sure that we go through a rigorous quality control where we proofread the site, test every single page, every form, and every link to make sure that when we do go live, everything's going to be in great shape.
Once we've done all that, we get your final approval to go live. Then we handle all the behind the scenes technical details and your site goes live.
While a lot goes into building the website, the website design process is pretty simple at its core. It's Plan, Design, Build, and Go Live, so don't get overwhelmed. I invite you to download our "Ultimate Website Buyer's Guide" to learn how you can avoid a nightmare and make your next web design project a true success.
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