BUILDING A WEBSITEWhat to Expect

Slideshow by: Anthony Horn AnthonyHorn.com

PROCESS INDEX

1. Discovery2. Immersion3. Strategy4. Design5. Development6. Testing7. Launch

DISCOVERY

No one knows your business like you do, so the discovery process is a time to sit down, have a cup of coffee, and discuss what makes your company special.

IMMERSIONRemember that many agencies and freelancers may be new to your industry, market, and product. In order to build a really effective website your designer has to understand you, your customers, your product or service, and your competition.

STRATEGYFirst step to building a plan is assessing the situation.● Analyze SEO● Analyze social media● Analyze design● Present findings● Establish a strategy

DESIGN

● Moodboards (Getting the feel)● Wireframes (Choosing the layout)● CSS Style Guide (Defining standards)● Designs (What your site will look like)● Mock Ups (Presenting the designs)● Create Web Assets (Prep for development)

Be sure to ask about mobile designs, and whether retina displays were taken into consideration.

DEVELOPMENTNow it’s time to turn the design into a dynamic, living, functioning website. Be specific about what you want to be dynamic, and what you want to be static.

Ask questions about how you make the content look like the design when you're editing or adding pages.

TESTINGYou're probably going to be a part of the QA(quality assurance), this means making sure the site looks good in the browsers and devices you and your designer agreed upon.

Know that testing and development for older browsers and wider arrays of devices will drive up the cost of a project.

GOING LIVEUp until this point the site construction should have been done on a development, or dev, site. Also known as a Staging Environment, this is where all the testing and content entry should have been done.

When everything looks good, the developers will move it to a URL of your choice, and you are free to go tell the world about your awesome new site.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONSSEOUnless the company that build your website specializes in SEO, you may want to seek out a specialist. Don’t expect your site to get visited just because it is out there.

SOCIAL MEDIALook into social media. You may have created some accounts just to add icons to the design. Now you have to use them, or hire someone to manage them. They will also lend themselves to the SEO efforts.