Choose your web designer wisely
Your website is a reflection of you and your organization or company. You want a website with professional graphics and a professional design that looks great on all devices (computer, tablet, or phone).
Your website is a marketing investment.
Plan your site page structure
Besides the Home Page, About Us page, and a Contact page, what additional content pages do you want? To help plan your site’s page structure, take a look at the websites of similar organizations or businesses.
Write content for each site page
Oftentimes, writing down the content can help solidify the structure of your site as well. You can provide us with a MS Word doc containing your content.
Select photos for your site
Find photos applicable to your organization or business that you want used in your website header or on your content pages. You can either let us know where you want each photo used or provide us with several possible photos and let us decide where best to use them.
Need photos?
Search for free-use photos from Freerangestock | Freeimages | Pixabay | Pexels | Goodfreephotos | Unsplash. Or purchase images from Bigstockphoto | Dreamstime | Canstockphoto | Shutterstock.
Visualize your website’s layout
Do you prefer angular, minimalist designs, or rounded designs with a great deal of shadow and depth? Muted or bright colors? Let us know of other websites you really like and why. Keep in mind that web design trends change, but you need to love the look of your site, regardless of trends.
If you want a web background as part of your site design, take a look at these sites: Cool Backgrounds | PSDgraphics | Subtle Patterns | Web Backgrounds | freepik. You can also do a Google image search for web backgrounds. Many backgrounds are available for free! Photos make great backgrounds as well.
Plan your website maintenance
With a site built in WordPress or Wix, your organization or business can maintain your own website via any internet browser.
You will need to consider if your organization or business will run program updates on your site and edit content or if you wish to set up a maintenance contract with us. For more information, please read maintaining your website.
Obtain a hosting account
We don’t host websites or register domains. However, we can guide you through the process of finding an affordable web host where you can register your domain name and set up a hosting account (needed if you want a self-hosted WordPress site). We have worked with GreenGeeks | SiteGround | A2 Hosting and found them to be the best hosts in terms of site speed, management, and technical support. Additionally, these hosts offer separate login access for us and a “staging site” setup, which allows us to build your site privately.
Set up an FTP account
For a self-hosted WordPress site, we will need an FTP account in order to upload your custom web files to your host’s server. If you create the FTP account, make sure to allow us access to the entire WordPress directory and record the FTP hostname, username, and password. We will need this information.
Sign a web design contract
We require a 20-25% down payment of the estimated quote before beginning the design process. The down payment amount will depend on the total quote.
Review your website in progress
You may view the site during the design process and give feedback. Please note: requests for extensive or multiple changes to the agreed-upon design may necessitate additional final costs.
Approve your site and enjoy the praise!
Once your site’s setup is finalized and you are happy with the design, your new site will be live to the world. We will then submit our final invoice.