Your website is much much more than just a URL. It’s the online home of your business. Websites can provide different services for both their owners and their clients. Although a website is meant to be a resource, we also want it to be aesthetically pleasing!
I know designing a website sounds extremely scary and time consuming and creating a cohesive web design in comparison to your branding while also taking on all the needs of your business can be a daunting task. Let me help you! Based on your needs, I’ll do all the initial heavy lifting. Once we get to turnover, we will sit down to discuss how to maintain your website in the future. If you run into issues, I won’t leave you high and dry! I’m available as a resource to your business for 1 year after turnover - all included in your web package. If you truly Want to be hands off when it comes to your web presence, I offer site updates at a reasonable rate after that 1 year.
All this might sound great, but I’m sure you have tons of questions when it comes to my web services. Hopefully I can clear some of those throughout this blog post! So, let’s start from the beginning.
Start with Branding First
Before you reach out to me about creating a website, you must have branding completed first. At the least, I will need your branding colors, preferred fonts, and PNGs (with transparent backgrounds) of your logos. If you have all of these ready to rock-n-roll, please prepare them for me by placing them in a Google Drive folder. When it’s time for me to get started. I will ask you for access to this folder.
If you don’t already have branding, I have great news - I also do branding! Check out this blog post on what that process looks like.
Set up a Consultation Call
My packages for websites are pretty simple. My main package is a site starter that includes a home page and one additional page. Based on your business needs, we might need to add pages to your package. At the end of the day, your site will include both the desktop design, mobile design, and SEOs complete for each page. Depending on your goals, your site might need a blog, online store, or booking site. These are known as systems. If we add a site system to your package, I will set up the system along with teach you how to use it to its full advantage. Other setups of other aspects of owning a website, such as domain setups, email marketing, email accounts with your custom domain, advertising, and more are complimentary!
During the call, I’m going to ask you a few questions to gauge the intention of your website. Here’s a few of those -
What’s your business name? What industry are you in?
Do you already own your domain? Who did you purchase it through?
What is the future of your business? What are your big and small business goals? These goals could be as broad as growing an audience and clientele. It could be adding members to your team or providing a new service. Or, your goals could be as specific as wanting to grow a subscriber list of 1,000 people, launching an online store to potentially sell 500 planners, or create a page dedicated to your wedding photography portfolio and next steps to book you.
What aspects of a website do you need to take steps towards your goals? During the call, I will help you through this question. The main point of this question to think big picture about your website. So many business owners want a website because they believe they need it. Although that might be true, a website is absolutely pointless to your business if it’s not properly designed to be a tool to assist in achieving your goals.
The consultation call will provide me with enough information to quote you for a site based on your business goals. Once you’re ready to proceed, I will send over a contract and invoice. To lock in your package and release me to start on your site, a 50% non-refundable deposit and the contract must be returned. Keep in mind that the invoice includes only my cost. There’s a few additional costs to a site such as the domain, subscription to the hosting site, and other subscriptions. We will chat about these additional costs during the consultation call.
The Desktop Design
All your site designs will be completed through Wix. Wix has a friendly interface while also providing full design capabilities. All designs I create in Wix are completely unique and custom. This means I start off with a blank slate - no templates. Kicking off your desktop design is the most time-consuming part of the process. As I complete each page, I will send you a link to your website for feedback. At this time, your domain will be crazy and random. So, there is no chance that a potential client will stumble upon your unfinished site. We will connect your site domain to your website much later on; once it’s ready to launch.
As I work through the pages, I may request specific content or information from you to continue. I will work through the design as much as possible while I wait for those things. Keep in mind, the quicker you get those materials to me, the quicker I can finish up your desktop design! Once the design is complete and approved, we will move on to your mobile site!
The Mobile Design
Out of curiosity or by accident, you might have checked out your mobile design while I was deep in your desktop design. If you did this, you might have noticed that all the same content from your desktop design was there, but randomized and messy. All the components on your desktop design translates to your mobile design, but just needs to be organized. The content of these components are connected, which makes editing your site in the future simple! For example, if you change part of your bio on your “About Me” page, the same text will be altered on your mobile site.
When it comes to the mobile design, we can remove some of those connected components if they are not needed. We can also add components to just your mobile site. I will inform you as I complete pages on your mobile site. This way you can give me feedback as I work through the other pages.
SEOs
While I work on your mobile design, I will also complete the SEOs for your website. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. To most, SEOs can belong to the aliens. I’m here to simplify it and bring it back down to earth for you.
Completing SEOs allows your site to be easily searchable through online search engines. An example of an SEO would be providing alternative text to an image. When we look at an image, we know it’s a girl running around in a field. But, Google doesn’t. As we scroll through your home page, we know it’s a website for a bakery focused on creating beautiful wedding cakes. But, Google doesn’t (unless your URL is www.weddingcakebakeryforweddings.com).
If you have a business goal of being a family photographer in the Dallas, TX area, I will set up your SEOs accordingly. Although your business pops up when a mom in Grapevine searches “Dallas Family Photographer”, you might only show up on the third page. To grow up that list, let’s chat about the power of blogging.
Turnover of Web services
Once your desktop design, mobile design, and SEOs are complete, it’s time for turnover! A face-to-face, or zoom meeting is essential to the turnover process. During this meeting, we will chat about the next steps that you must complete along with a tutorial about maintaining your site. By the date of the meeting, your final payment must be complete. By the end of the meeting, I will be shifting ownership of your site from me to you.
Don’t worry - after the meeting, I don’t just disappear into the bushes. I’m a resource to you for one full calendar year from the turnover date! I’m definitely a person that learns from doing. Although a tutorial might be helpful, a lot of the information is lost by the time you need it. As you navigate your site throughout the year, I’m here to help when you come across obstacles or hiccups. Here are examples of things I will help with through out that year -
Teaching you to add SEOs to your blog post
Creating an additional email address to your domain
You tried to alter something on your site and it messed up the spacing
Changing your site domain
Keep in mind that I will step in to teach you how to do these things. I am not your site manager.
If you want to add a page or a site system to your website, we will need to create a new project for those needs.
Portfolio
If you're looking to invest in a new website, I'm sure you want to see a portfolio prior to taking that big step! Here's a few site examples -
Kaleigh Madison (mine of course!): www.kaleighmadison.com
Taylor Harris Photography: www.taylorharrisphotography.com
Erica Berry: www.ericaberry.org
Value Her Ministry: www.valueherministry.com
Thank you for reading my blog post!
PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM - @KALEIGHMADISON.PHOTO
BOOK me for branding here - KALEIGHMADISON.COM/design