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from initial contact to full website: step by step

The question of 'how does this all work?' is a common one. How do you get from the initial contact to a great idea and on to a well-designed website in production? We’ll show you how—and take care of the details!

Overall Steps:

1. Idea and Concept Gathering

First, be ready to answer lots of questions! The more we (you and I) both understand what you want from your website (features, capabilities, content), the clearer the end-goal will become, and the faster we can deliver a proper roadmap.

What will we be asking? It depends, as each project is unique, and your needs are specific to your business, but some common questions include:

Some of these questions may mean nothing to you, and that's OK - it's our job to figure out what you need, by asking some plain-English questions and listening to your ideas and goals. We also have a very nice questionnaire that every client fills out, so that ie can capture these ideas in a central document.

2. Determining Effective Solutions, and Website Costs

Based on the answers to the above questions (and more), we then figure out the best solution (most cost effective, fastest return on investment, best use of the right web technology) for your business, and from that we then determine your initial website costs based on the effort involved.

That's why we offer a no-obligation, RISK FREE consultation about your website project - to figure out what you need, and how our skills can deliver on those needs. We wrap all these items up (website design, functions, features, capabilities, wish list, technology platform) into a written estimate of website project scope, deliverables and pricing, and present that to you as a letter of agreement. You get everything up front and in writing.

3. Breaking Ground and Payment Plan

We also provide a simple payment plan.

We break the total estimated project fees into thirds, and 1/3 is due on contract signing as the deposit/binder, to signal that we should begin working on the website design and architecture (the internal organization, navigation, database structures and flow).

At this time, we ask you to start sending all the content for the website that we need to populate with. This way, while we work on the design and architecture, you're working on content—and when the design is approved, we have the approved content and can move right on to the next step.

4. Approving the Design and Structure

We'll provide a design idea that we know works best for your website and your business goals. If needed, we'll revise and tweak the design and flow as needed.

You get one initial website design, plus two rounds of changes, as part of our website design fee. If you exceed two rounds, we start running the clock and charge for changes by the hour. We will say that 75% of all projects have been approved on the first design, and 95% are approved on the second. No one has ever been charged an overtime fee, since we really do try to provide a great website design up front, and it rarely takes more than one or two refinements to get to consensus.

At this point (approval of website design), we require the second payment (1/3).

5. Construction begins

With the design approved, we start building out the shell of the site (all the empty pages, driven by a common shell, or template, so that if the there are small to medium design changes or new sections over time, we can change the template, and all the pages update to reflect that new direction).

We also start working on the search engine friendliness of the site, by optimizing the template, content and pages to be as accessible to the engines as possible, and making sure certain important 'tags' (pieces of web pages) have the right content to help you rank higher. We also optimize download times by squeezing all graphics as small (yet as clear/crisp) as possible, and using optimized coding techniques (like common script and styles) that download once and are reused as needed.

6. Test, test, test

Once we've built your website and create a prototype, we'll hang it off our own test server, so you can see it in action (and send other people you want to test it). It's still not located at www.yourdomain.com, but it works for approval purposes.

7. Final approval - launch!

With your final review and approval of the test website, we require final payment (last third, plus any approved expenses and overage charges, where applicable), and then we move it into production where the world can see it live!

And that gets you to Day 1 - Congratulations! Now, on to next-day website maintenance...

let's get started!

Well, we hope that explains a lot of how things work, and we look forward to discussing your website project in depth, , and to show you how our technical skills, customer service and support are all truly exceptional—and a great value, too!

See our Frequently Asked... and Answered for more details on certain topics, including website development and programming costs.







Are you ready for a great website? Give us a call at 1.888.948.4467 -
let's get started today with a free, no-obligation consultation about your website design, website makeover or database-driven website project.

We can provide a risk-free website analysis for a small, refundable fee...

Ask about our NO-HASSLE next-day website maintenance!