How to prepare for your website project

Services

Mar. 29

If you’re ready to start talking with a website designer but are wondering what you’ll need to complete before working together, you’ve come to the right place. This list and process will be different for every designer and studio, but here are the things that we require you to complete at least one week before your website project begins. This usually takes more time than people expect, so be honest with yourself, your schedule and your working speed to estimate how much time you’ll need! All of these things are broken down clearly in a project portal for every client of ours, but here is a peek so that you can get started even before inquiring.

Collect inspiration
We suggest creating a Pinterest board to gather visual references, but if you’re not familiar with the platform you can also provide links to brands or websites that align with what you want your website to look and feel like. You can elaborate on the specific things that you like and want to emulate (eg. colours, fonts, imagery, functionality, page layout or style) and even point out specific things you don’t like. We take your inspiration as insight into the visuals that you connect with and we create your custom designs using our expertise and design suggestions for your specific brand. The inspiration you collect gives us a visual representation of your ideas to go along with the questionnaire that we have you fill out to make sure we’re all on the same page.
Gather your branding or get brand design done
If you have one primary logo or multiple logo options, a colour palette and selected fonts, you’ll provide those for us to use on your site. If you only have a logo but would like our help selecting colours and fonts, we can do that during our website design process. We don’t include logo design in our website packages, so we’d recommend booking a branding project with us or another designer beforehand if you’d like to have custom logos and a brand guide created for you and applied to your site. However, if you’re happy with us selecting a font for you that we use to type out your business name in the header of your website, that is possible without booking a branding project.
Collect your brand photos or schedule a photoshoot
Brand photos make a business feel professional, authoritative and established, but they are not required for us to create your site for you. At the bare minimum, we recommend having at least one headshot you like of yourself (even if you take it using a timer at home). The next step up would be booking a mini shoot with a photographer who can give you just a handful of shots of you looking to camera and maybe working as well. The ultimate goal would be to book a shoot for a few hours at a studio or location that matches the vibe of your business because then we’ll have a lot of photos to work with and add throughout your site. However, we know at the early stages of business that our clients often need a website before they’re able to have a shoot, so we can also source free stock photos during your project that match your aesthetic, and you can swap out your brand photos later when you have them.
Write the copy or hire a copywriter
When you book a Website in a Day or Website in Four Weeks with us, we provide you with a copywriting guide that we created in collaboration with a copywriter, to help guide you through the process of writing the copy yourself. We provide suggestions for the content that a service-based website should include so that you don’t have to Google that yourself. We find most of our clients go this route, but some will also hire a copywriter beforehand if they don’t enjoy writing, don’t feel that it’s their strength or simply don’t have the time to write it. A copywriter will provide expertise and strategic advice to help the users of your website achieve the goals you have for them and will help you establish your brand voice (which a lot of people often overlook!). Since we create custom website designs for all of our clients, we recommend hiring the copywriter first so that we can build the designs after. We can still give suggestions for minor changes in section order or layout if needed.
Collect your domain information or make a list of preferred domain names
If you’ve already purchased a domain and it’s either connected to an old website or isn’t connected to anything yet, we can help you get it connected to the new site as long as you provide the login information for the domain registrar (eg. GoDaddy, BlueHost, NameCheap). If you haven’t purchased one yet, no problem! We can actually get you your first year of hosting free through Squarespace, we just ask for a list of preferred domain names as your top choice isn’t always available.