Website Design Process 2018

Bespoke or a template based website design, which method to consider and why?

However, web design Industry follows only two different types of website design procedures!

 

Website design process checklist & steps

Designing a website is easy, although creating a compelling website is challenging, why? Involvement of components like content, layout, user-friendly, graphics, USP’s, makes it complicated.

Steps to create a compelling website works in a flow,

Great website design starts with proper planning, research, setting milestones, creating meaningful content

But you will be surprised to know the fact that,

Widely two different types of websites design procedures are followed,

 

 

And website design process which involves SEO is different than the one without,

Website journey with SEO requires four significant steps; you can also say ‘Action plan’ or a flow diagram

 

 

And if I am not wrong, the entire web design industry follows mostly two methods of website designing

And you can see the pros and con of each one of them in the above link to make informed decisions.

Furthermore, a website redesign process and steps are different, should you wish to explore, and 9 points website launch checklist is invaluable if you are planning a website launch soon.

Let’s dive in and discuss the essential steps of

Website design, the process & checklist.

Primarily a key person plays a vital role in the execution of critical processes related to website designing; you can expect correct outcome with experienced individuals,

E.g., a PM (project manager) is ideal to create a sitemap, wireframe, liaison, finding USP’s, KPI’s (key performance indicators), an SEO manager is best to liaison for content, SEO, writing meta tags and so on.

And most important, thinking of copying content from your competitors is a lost idea, so I strongly suggest to walk away from this path which will take you Nowhere because Google recognizes generic & targeted content, copied & fresh content, not even content but its related imagery as well.

Content is the key to unlock the Google door and writing valuable content starts with three primary ingredients

• Content Research
• Content planning
• Content Strategy

You can see and feel the type of content Google loves, Lilach Bullock explains

You cannot earn audience loyalty without quality content

Should you wish to see your website rank no # 1 in Google search, consider writing highly targeted & meaningful SEO friendly content from day one.

Let’s find out the steps involved in designing a bespoke website

Bespoke website design process 2018

Below is the journey for design & developing a website for a service industry,

Presentation & methodology of services and this journey is different as compared to the company selling products

 

Find unique selling points (USP’s)

 Make a list of all the USP’s (Unique selling points) of the business,

And I am sure your company has common or unique methods & processes specific to your industry, you need to find out what is right from a customer perspective

E.g., a boutique selling wedding gowns in London can highlight their USP as ‘Range of exclusive collection of more than 100 English wedding gowns.’

E.g., a private taxi owner with a fleet of luxury cars considers the USP, ‘Hire a Rolls Royce starting £299 a day.’

Keep searching for USP’s and make a list to use them later in making headings, sub-headings, header creation of home & subsequent pages,

In today’s highly competitive digital jungle, you can imagine what it takes at all to achieve SERP (search engine ranking positions), and no one wants to see a potential visitor will come and walk away from your website without browsing or taking an interest

And within no time you will see Google drag listings of your website, why?

Because, Google value customer perspective seriously and if most of your visitor is bouncing which is a clear indication of a low-value website, you can never achieve search rankings on your potential keywords unless you earn the customer perspective.

Keep that in mind once a visitor is landing on your website page, they must find a value proposition

 

 

which you can only present in the form of USP’s on your website.

Make sure your construction of the website pages should include unique selling prepositions.

GoDaddy explains USP as ‘appeal to what customers care about.’

And also make a list of KPI’s (key performance indicators),

Every company owns unique USP’s & KPI’s critical for the business, but a thoughtful process is required to find them,

 

Examining products & services

Make a list of all the products or services of the business and try to find out the value proposition, mark and highlight those you wish to portray on the home page, the first and most essential page of any website.

E.g., the services of a charted accountant in Uk involves preparing annual accounts, generating cash flow statements, bookkeeping, tax planning, business advice, audits, etc.

Collecting and presenting best value to visitors is the key objective in designing a user-friendly website.

Till now you are researching the project and collecting the information, next part is the construction of home page.

 

Finalize Website content

As explained above the importance of website content, we suggest you discuss and explain to your customer the process of writing content

You can ask the customer to provide content or hire an experienced content writer. Check the pros & cons of hiring a content writer

But keep in mind content is the foundation to build a successful web presence, the content of home and subsequent pages include creative headings & sub-headings, header taglines with USP’s, different content blocks to place in the page.

 

Homepage construction

The first page of the website and the most visited, the creation of a bespoke design home page is tricky and time-consuming, also involves several stages.

Understanding the buyer persona

The step is vital to the success of your bespoke website design process.

It involves understanding likes and knowing the expectations of your customer, and the best way is to ask targeted questions related to the business, marketing, competition, objectives and so on.

For the first time, we are sharing our website design questionnaire,

Download Website design questionnaire (PDF)

 Above questionnaire includes vital information to finalize a website design which closely matches your buyer expectations.

The step is the only way to avoid surprises. Next comes wireframing.

Wireframe

 

A wireframe is a blueprint of a website represents framework, in other words, skeleton to show the website structure.

The structure includes the layout of the website page including navigation & content. Usually, wireframe lacks colors, graphics

Why we create website wireframe?

The basic idea is to show the placement of elements to the customer and agree upon the skeleton of a website design structure.

E.g., architects draw a blueprint of a house on a paper and discuss with the client before graphical representation,

The same way, web design companies finalize wireframes before construction of the website.

 

Placing sections

Try to find out the parts important from a customer perspective, and not what you wish to display

Count on the list of USP’s, meaningful reserve spaces for a case study or a downloadable guide or a free checklist.

Traditionally you can use pencil & paper, Cloud-based wireframing tools are also available, free to try and starts at $13 per month.

You can keep the guide handy for insightful information on sketching wireframes

 

Photoshop Creative

After freezing the wireframe with the customer, you are equipped with all relevant information actually to design the website home & second level pages.

You can use Adobe Photoshop to design the creative, and the job is suitable for an experienced Photoshop designer either in-house or freelancer

Carefully use details provided by the customer in website design questionnaire

And don’t forget to sign a non-disclosure agreement to maintain secrecy if you are considering a freelance individual,

 

Elements to think in creative 

Headings & Sub-headings

Should you wish to increase your Avg. Session duration, consider creative headings & sub-headings?

 

Content

Content helps your website survive, write relevant material and include unique selling points of the business, remember a website project may fail without compelling content

 

Graphics

Make use of meaningful infographics instead of generic imagery

E.g., see infographics & snips I am using in-line with the content.

 

Call to actions

I am sure you must have allocated a block for a call to actions, make sure to stand out a call to actions from the crowd, you can consider placing them,

Contact form, free guides, subscriptions, brochure download, and link to price packages

Time to code,

If you are still wondering which CMS (content management system) to use, time to meet WordPress website CMS

Steps mentioned above defines a bespoke website design process, let’s check the second one template based website design

 

Website design template based

A bespoke website design process is not cost effective and time-consuming as well due to the involvement of specialty processes you can see above.

On the contrary, website design based on a standard box template is fast & low cost, and the process involved

• Finding a relevant website template closest to the website design questionnaire filled by the customer, and chose from a collection of over 11000 website themes available
• Send a bunch of 3 to 4 templates links to your customer
• Purchase the selected one after creating your account.
• Start modifications of the selected theme

Bottom line

You can see the template based website design process is a lot easier, saves you and your customer lot of money as well,

You can discuss both the procedures with your customer depending on the budget criteria. However customers with low budget, template based website design process is ideal.