Learn about your website needs: The first step we need to do is sit down and discuss your current website and business plans. This includes from talking about
- what your business currently does or might do in the future
- what your target market is or could be in the future
- where you see your company in the short and long term
- what you hope the website will do for your business
- things you want to include in your website
- competitors websites that you like or don't like
Evaluate your competitors websites: Once we figure out your website needs, we search the web for your competitors websites along with ones that you provided in the consultation. We take a look and evaluate each website for their strengths and weaknesses. By doing this, we have a better understanding of your competition and how to design your website to make it more user friendly, visually appealing, and informative to your target market.
Creating a layout for your website: The next thing we do is go to the drawing board and start making mock-ups based on our consultation and competitor evaluation along with our own professional recommendations. Depending on our proposal and your request for the number of layout drafts you will usually see all two, three, or more drafts at the same time. In this stage you can select what layout draft looks close to what your looking for. Of course we will be able to modify it slightly later, its best to get the one that closest resembles your preferances.
Coding the website: Once you choose a layout, we take that concept and split it up into various section such as a header, navigation, body, a footer, and so on. In this stage is where your layout actually becomes a website because its transformed into code behind the scenes as opposed to a flat image. This might involves things such as:
- Navigation menus
- Roll over effects
- Flash animation
Adding pages & programming: Once your layout is split and coded, we start adding content to your website. This might include things like:
Double check your website: At the last stage, we double check your website to make sure it doesn't have any major flaws such as missing hyperlinks, working forms, or things that are way off position. In the mean time, you should be double checking all the content, the look, position, and anything else on your website that you want changed.
Present your website to the world: After you provide us with your final changes, we take all the files and transfer it from our network, to your server. (The website is held on our network to make sure no visitors get errors on your current website during the development stages).
