Website Development ProcessThere are numerous steps in the website design and development process. From gathering initial information, to the creation of your web site, and finally to maintenance to keep your web site up to date and current.

  • Information gathering about you and your business
  • Researching keyword markets and competitors
  • Planning
  • Design
  • Development
  • Testing and Delivery
  • Maintenance

 

1. Information Gathering

The best way to start is by gathering information about you and your business. We work from an understanding of you business to build you the best possible website.

The first step is all about you.

To develop a solid understanding of your hopes, expertise, business goals, priorities, values, philosophy, story, and expectations we ask a lot of questions – in a structured way – so that our understanding is clear and all the key facts we need, rise to the surface.

Some of things you want to consider are:

  • Purpose: What is the purpose of your website? Will you be sharing information? Selling products? Selling an idea? Bringing people together? Selling a service?
  • Goals: What do you want the website to do? Improve your marketing ROI? Make money? Make working with your team easier? Distribute training and content more economically and effectively?
  • Target Audience: Who is the intended user? Do you have a specific user group in mind? What is their profile? How will your website connect with this group, demographic or tribe? To deliver a clear message it helps to have a clear picture of the typical user.
  • Content: What kind of information will the target audience be looking for on your site? Are they looking for specific information, a particular product or service? Will they be ordering online?

 

2. Researching keyword markets and competitors

Our websites have a strong marketing focus – they’re built to rank in the search engines, reach a specific audience and convert attention into action – so that your goals are met.

Without divulging too much, here are just some of the things we’ll do.

  • We’ll find the right keyword niches for you target – Niches that have traffic, commercial value and resonate with your aims, purpose and goals.
  • Evaluate websites that already rank in your target keyword niches – What are they doing? How are they marketing online? Is there anything we can learn to help you be more successful online?
  • Look at how competitors in your niche are using their websites – What messages are they using? How do they engage the market? What are their offers? Price points? What kind of online customer service are they delivering? What do they do well that you can learn from? What does the market see when they look at competitors operating in your niche?

Having a wider perspective helps you stand out and deliver better value.

 

3. Planning

Using the information and perspectives we’ve gained in steps 1 and 2 we need to start planning your site. It is time to develop the site map.

At this stage we’ll work with you to:

  • Identify the all the categories and sub categories for your site
  • Define the ‘truth of each page’ – a single message, linked to a keyword – so that each page on the site has a single clear message. This helps visitors understand your message and find what they want. It also helps the search engines “understand” what pages on your website are about. This will help you to rank for your target keyword niche
  • Define the site structure and create a map of the pages on the site
  • Decide on the features and functionality to be included on the website
  • Narrow down the brief for branding, website design
  • Brainstorm ideas for the page and interface design
  • Develop initial ‘blueprints’ for what web pages on the site will look like. These ‘blueprints’ or ‘wireframes’ show you the structure of your web pages. Once you are happy with the draft wireframe we’ll test it against web interface usability best practice and ISO standards; creating a checklist to ensure that the final site is built to a high degree of usability.

 

4. Design

Once the purpose and structure of your site have been determined, it’s time to consider the look and feel of the site.

Target audience is one of the key factors taken into consideration.  As part of the design phase, it is also important to incorporate elements such as the company logo or colours to capture and enhance your brand identity.

We work with talented web designers around the world and can source many more designs for your budget than a typical UK design agency could provide. Designers receive a well-developed brief, wire frame page structure and guidance on colours, feel, styling, brand elements and target audience – all the information they need to really understand the project.

Designers are invited to tender for the work and submit their initial responses to the brief. We would normally expect between 10 and 20 submissions at this stage. After filtering out the designs with potential we will get your view and work with designers to tweak their ideas.

Through a process of elimination we will whittle down the submissions until there is only one left. The next stage is to work closely with your designer, exchanging ideas and feedback until you arrive at the final design.

This process is fun and fully guaranteed so that you only pay for a design you are happy with. We project manage things so that it runs smoothly but will let your review, comment and feedback your views so that you feel part of process.

 

5. Development

This is the point where we take the design and develop it into a website. It is the point where the functional elements of your site – opt-in form, RSS feeds, animations, contact forms, customer support elements, ecommerce shopping carts – come to life.

First we develop the home page, followed by a “shell” for the interior pages. The shell acts as a template for the content pages of your site and contains the main navigational structure for the website. Once the shell has been created we can distribute content – copy, pictures and video – throughout your site.

Beta testing and review follow initial development. We’ll iron out any technical issues and make sure the code that makes up your site is developed to a high standard. You can also review the site and feedback changes to us. After refining all the elements it’s time for ‘Testing and Delivery’.

 

6. Testing and Delivery

At this point we will attend to the final details and test your website. We will test:

  • Usability – Giving your website a final usability score benchmarked against web interface best practice and ISO standards
  • Browser Compatibility – Ensure complete functionality of forms or other scripts, as well last testing for last minute compatibility issues (viewing differences between different web browsers), ensuring that your web site is optimized to be viewed properly in the most recent browser versions.
  • Code validation – Valid code means that your site meets the current web development standards and helps when checking for issues such as cross-browser compatibility
  • Code optimisation – To make sure your site loads quickly and performs well we will run some extra tests to see that all the elements of code are optimised for faster loading

Once we have finished testing the site we’ll deliver it to you. We offer domain name registration and web hosting services and once the accounts have been set up your website can be uploaded to your server.

Once live we will give the website a final review to make sure all the files were uploaded correctly. After that’s done, we’ll ask you sign-off on the project.

This marks the official launch of your site - it is now viewable by the public.

 

7. Maintenance

We provide maintenance packages at reduced rates, based on how often you anticipate making changes or additions to your web site. Once your site is live we can to work with you to integrate your site with your wider marketing. Updating your site to reflect the latest campaigns you are running an important part of promoting your business.

If you prefer to be more hands on we can give your site a CMS (Content Management System). This gives you the ability to edit the content areas of the web site yourself. This would be decided at the Planning stage.

If your time is taken up with the day-to-day running of your business and you want to handover the management of your site completely we will work with you to make it work.

We can protect your website from hackers, spammers, scrappers, hot linkers and other threats by integrating your website into a global security network putting it behind a firewall. The same system we use to protect your site also makes your site load faster and ensures that if your main server goes down, your site will remain online.

 

 

Special 3-in-1 Offer – Website, Mobile Site and Local Marketing £5797