Behind-the-Scenes of My Website Design Process
Building an online business gives you the freedom to do what you love while still earning what you’re worth isn’t easy, but it is possible.
I love working with creative women who have a heart to serve grow their business through bringing all the pieces together into a cohesive website that fits your style and showcases your expertise.
I take on a very limited number of new clients each year to ensure that each projects gets the time and attention it deserves. I focus on client service and completely custom design. You work directly with me as we craft a website gives you a spotlight on your expertise and is set up to convert and engage with your dream clients.
Squarespace Websites
I design exclusively on the Squarespace platform! This allows me to provide you with the highest quality website customized for your business. Squarespace allows you to have the best of both worlds - a custom design without the unmanageable edits that come with other platforms. Each website is designed with custom CSS to provide you with a unique design, not a cookie-cutter template.
So how does it work? A full site design process takes 8 weeks.
Before we begin
I always start with a discovery call (usually over Zoom) so that a potential client and I can get to know one another and I can create a custom proposal based on their needs. During this call I also walk you through my design process so you can see how things will work (and make sure it fits your timeline).
Once you decide to work with me, a few things happen. I’ll send over a contract and the first invoice and start getting the project set up behind the scenes. This includes an Asana project, Google Drive folder, and customized deadlines.
I also send a design questionnaire to make sure I have all the information I need to get started and to make sure I understand your design style and a Welcome Guide going over everything you need to know about working together.
Week One | Website Strategy & Project Kick-off
When your project start date arrives, we’ll have a kick-off call in which we’ll go over your design questionnaire and finalize which pages we’ll be designing together.
After this call, you’ll receive a Website Strategy PDF to make sure we’re on the same page about the overall look and feel of your site before design begins.
This is the Website Strategy guide for my website.
Week Two | Content Prep
This week you’ll be spending time finalizing all the content for your website including copy and images. To help, I give you a Website Content Planner with tips for each page we’ll be designing.
It’s important that all the content is finished and submitted before the mockup design starts so that I know exactly what you need on your website.
Week Three | Design for Mockup
Once the website strategy is finalized, I jump into design mode! I’ll create a mockup of the 3 most important pages of your new website and send you a PDF to review. You’ll also receive an Adobe XD link so you can see your website as a real site and make comments right on the design.
You can check out the mockup of my website to see what this looks like
Week Four| Edits to Mockup
You’ll have two rounds of edits in the mockup stage to finalize the design before development begins. This is where you can give feedback on the layout, content sections and aesthetic of the site. It’s important to give detailed feedback during this stage because once the mockup is finalized, it’s used to develop your actual website.
You can visit the XD link to see how the mockup changed and explore how it works.
Week Five | Development & Site Creation
During the development stage, I take the design from the mockup and create your entire website (all the pages listed in the project) in Squarespace. If you currently have a Squarespace site, I design in trial so we don’t have to take it down. If you aren’t currently on Squarespace, we’ll start a trial that will then become your online home.
Week Six | Edits to Site
This week we’ll spend time going back and forth to make edits to your website. You get an unlimited number of edits this week until the final deadline of 12pm EST on Friday.
Edits can include changes to colors, switching images, or making small tweaks to the design. It doesn’t include redesigning an entire page (we already did this in the mockup stage) or adding new pages.
I’ll also use this week to add in your final content if anything had to be edited.
Week Seven | SEO & Website Testing
We will update any SEO fields that need to be added for existing and new pages based on your keywords (you get a questionnaire to help with this). We’ll also fully test your website and start prepping everything to go live.
This week is also the week that we’ll make edits to the mobile version of your website. While Squarespace does a great job at translating the desktop design to mobile, there are always a few small tweaks that need to be made.
This isn’t part of the earlier design process as we can’t control too much about the mobile design (and we don’t need to), but we can make sure all the customizations we’ve made look great on a phone as well!
Week Eight | Launch
This week is for final prep of your website, testing everything one more time, and officially launching your new website.
Once your website is launched, you’ll receive the final files and extensive training videos walking you through how your website works and prepping you to make changes down the road.
This is an example of how that page looks:
The goal of this entire process to work in side-by-side to craft a website strategy and design that helps your business grow and gives you more time to spend doing what you love.
This new process has been designed to give you the best results in a short time and to give you the ability and resources to make edits to your website as needed in the future as your business grows!
In the end, you’ll receive a Website Strategy PDF, Custom CSS design of around 6 pages, a mobile responsive design, and training videos. The timeline for a full site design starts at 8 weeks. For more detailed information, see our example timeline.
