How To Prepare For Your Website Project

Your company’s website is a powerful tool for achieving your business goals and conveying your creative vision. So if your website hasn’t been pulling its weight lately—maybe it no longer reflects your brand or features outdated technology—it’s time to consider a refresh. We’ve pulled together our top 5 tips to help prepare for your new website project.

1. Prepare In Advance

Your website is the greatest expression of your brand—making it amazing is the most important marketing investment you’ll make, next to photography. Before you begin, establish a realistic budget and prepare for the amount of ongoing work that will be involved in maintaining your site’s content. Consider whether you need to hire a photographer for updated team portraits or to capture behind-the-scenes shots of your studio. Do you need to hire a copywriter to help define your brand voice? Are you also looking to update your company’s brand identity? Planning ahead will help de-stress the process.

2. Organize Your Photography

Having project, product, and lifestyle photography formatted in web-ready .jpg files and organized in labeled folders makes any onboarding process go much more smoothly. While your website designer can certainly review your photography to hone in on the aesthetic direction, it’s not their responsibility to sift through thousands of images on your behalf. Pre-organizing your photos will also help you determine whether you need to fill in any visual gaps before starting the website design process.

3. Commit to the Process

A thoughtful, well-designed site sets you apart from the competition and establishes credibility—so it’s critical to allocate enough time to the process. Determine what’s in your bandwidth to balance your website project with other initiatives, and carve out the time needed to be a significant collaborator. We’ve seen that clients who fit in the time enjoy the process more and are ultimately more satisfied with the end result. Not to mention, a website should never be left to the last minute. Allow at least 3-6 months depending on the content and complexity of your project.

A mooodboard for our client Paloma Contreras Design’s website.

4. Define Your Vision

Ask yourself, what are the goals of your website?  Clearly identifying your goals at the beginning of the process will allow your website designer to recommend the right technology or design features to captivate your audience.

Are you launching a new collection? Are you looking to capture a higher-end clientele or expand your client base?  Do you offer a new service? Your website designer can address all these questions and help you realize your goals through technology and design.

5. Establish Your Brand Identity

In order to design a beautiful website that’s clear, concise, and easy to navigate, it’s fundamental to establish your brand identity and narrative. Do you have a style guide that includes your logo, favicon, brand colors, typography and messaging already in place, or are you looking to evolve your brand?  Understanding how you want clients to interpret your brand’s personality will enable you to articulate your vision and align your messaging. 

Consider what’s your personal aesthetic and how you want that to translate through your brand’s personality. What feelings do you want to invoke? Establishing a brand identity is all about effectively articulating your narrative and conveying the scope of work that you do.

A Note On Website Maintenance Post-Launch

Because Google favors websites that regularly update their content and makes them a priority, regular maintenance will help your Google search ranking. For portfolio websites, budget around $1,500 per year for updates, and for e-commerce, upwards of $3,000 or more. Keep in mind the future growth of your company, any technology advancements, platform updates, or shifts in consumer behavior.  Whether you need to add a new team member to your about page, add a new project to your portfolio, introduce a new collection, or include a recent press release it’s important that your website is a constant reflection of your growth.

Looking to redesign your website? Contact us.

__

Written by Kamala Nair for The Brand Journal. Kamala is a Copywriter and Brand Voice Expert for Interior Designers and Architects.