ISO 9001:2015 , ISO 27001:2022
How Will Having A Responsive Website Help Business Grow?
A powerful menu system that provides easiest way to implement user-friendly responsive navigation optimised for mobile devices using HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery.Responsive web design is an approach that allows a website’s layout to change according to the visitor’s screen orientation and size. It’s one of the hottest trends these days due to the growth of mobile devices for online browsing and shopping.
4 major reasons to use responsive websites:
1. Supporting the multi-Device User:-In these modern times, websites are being visited by different devices and sizes of screen.To best support their experiences, it’s crucial that your site works well regardless of which device your visitor may be using at a given time. The content they have access on one device must also be reflected on another device when they return on it.
2.One Site to Rule Them All:-Considering the fact that it’s hard to keep one website relevant and updated,keeping multiple sites consistent and up-to-date is even more challenging. That’s exactly why responsive web design is now widely preferred over the idea of building separate websites for mobile phone users and desktop users.Due to this the managing of the site gets easier than managing same site for different devices.
3.Improved Search Engine Ranking:-As google’s search engine took the recommendation a step ahead by adding a label of mobile friendly which uses the approach of responsive websites which are shown on the search of mobile devices.While this designation was a nice to have, Google said at the time that they envisioned using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal in the future.To promote responsive web design google started rewarding sites that were built responsively for multi-device support.
4.Future Scalability:-Responsive websites give you the best chance at supporting newer devices and screens in the future. If a new device is launched in the market, you’ll have less to do when trying to accommodate the new technology.
A responsive layout for your website will also help in maintaining brand recognition.By making your site responsive you will be able to ensure that your site looks the same whenever or wherever it is accessed. If there is adaptive layout it is more effective i.e more control over the specific placement of banners,images,and text.As technology advances, more options become available for handheld devices. Having a responsive website allows your customers to see your site at its best as a representation of your business, but it also means there is less of a need to continually redevelopment of new layouts to keep up with the ever changing technology of mobile devices.
Every website, regardless of that site’s goals or the audience that it serves, will benefit from a display that works great across different screen sizes and on various devices. By ensuring that responsive web design is feature that you make a priority on all website projects.
As you can see, being responsive is the way to go as far as website design is concerned. If your website isn’t responsive, you will not see the results you are looking for and might even drive visitors away, which of course you don’t want.
More focus on conversational website designing by professionals in Mumbai.
Humans interact in the fascinating ways. They are socially awkward, communicate in varying styles, transferring knowledge personally, telling stories in a unique way to build trust. What happens when an artificial machine tries to evoke a similar response?
Today increasingly conversational interfaces are becoming the newest UX design. Google will be releasing a new VA chatbot; Facebook has an updated Messenger platform Microsoft Windows too will have it. They have figured out (AI) can solve UX problems: making them from faceless branded websites and apps to feel really personal and lively.
Chatbots have the ability to create a rather genuine, custom-made user experience. It is one that could be compared to a real live store experience — just like the smile you get, then a bit of chit chat then a friendly wink, making buying experiences personal and pleasant. This is an opportunity for a brand to extend and manage relationships with a variety of different customers. They can go beyond an extra mile from just being a product selling site. It is personal and a genuine branding experience!
The experience is relatively new and a challenge for web designing company and services to instill in Mumbai, India. Unlike the usual standard graphical (GUI), the applications need to work seamlessly without much input. They need to provide a new value of leverage of the stored information. They need to, anticipate what the user needs. The usual standard pattern flows are not good with conversational design. One needs adjustments.
2016 can be called the year of the bot — one does not know if it is beginning of the bots’ triumph. The debate is still going on in 2017 early!
Bots have been launched on Product Hunt and Google’s deep integration of Assistant for Android 2017 is also due. One is going to see this design concept integrated into the modern websites designed by web designing professional services, firms and companies in India to a higher degree with the popularity among clients and all the bugs being resolved.
Bots make the UI interface conversational and more personal it will require work from the designing teams. An interface. that is likely to see be a shape in a lot of 2017’s top designed sites.
What does this mean? What has to be done to make it happen in designing? Possible impacts:
- The designing team will have an interest in “human” language a big for news for content strategists!
- Increased capacities for writers and content strategists to act as UX designers and bot developers
- The increased use of more investments into “user-generated content,” creative communities, and fora,
- The use of more conversational/natural-language forms into the design.
- The use and attempts to make comment section an “engagement” with new content
Hopefully, this trend in conversational content and design by designing firms and services in India will continue. It has been launched and planned by Innovins a renowned web development company in Mumbai, India who can be your trusted partner in making your site more conversational. It’s up to the bots then after it is launched. I see grand success!
Visual Composer – WordPress Page Builder
Visual Composer plugin today probably is the most popular and easy to use website builder for the WordPress platform. At the same time, compared with other builders VC has a wider range of options, tools and features. Competent use of this plugin will help to create a unique, responsive and professional website. Most users of premium templates on ThemeForest managed to get acquainted with this product and fall in love with plugin, since it is so easy and comfortable to work with. innovins team was no exception in using this particular plugin. With the help of VC shortcodes we develop both templates and individual sites. VC is truly an indispensable assistant for both developers and users.
Why is the Visual Composer?
- User-friendly interface and a set of parameters. Easy to edit and configure the blocks. You don’t have to possess programming skills, it’s enough to use drag’n’drop control.
- Compatible practically with all WordPress products. Support for most popular plugins Woocommerce, SEO Yoast, WPML, Contact Form 7, Slider Revolution.
- Ability to use a constructor in any template. You can also meet the premium templates with already integrated plugin and ready-made solution for the VC.
- Absolute responsive for all design elements. At the same time you can choose a fixed size, it all depends on the project requirements.
- Freedom of action. For more specific tasks third-party developers can create their own elements, shortcodes, modules.
- Construction of both the backend and frontend. The so-called concept WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) enables you to create design and elements, controlling the entire process in real time.
- Automatically update function via WordPress dashboard.
- You can arrange all the items on the page without adhering to the standard grid; as a result to create a unique and dynamic design.
- Using specific shortcodes on the standard website pages.
- Save time! You can create templates for any elements and using them in future.
- Additional extensions available (200+ addons).
- Different translations available. Support .po and .mo files.
- 40+ predefined elements. Tabs, accordions, sliders, buttons, separate lines, text boxes, columns, players and so on.
With all the positive aspects of this product we can point out some disadvantages in its work. We hope this is temporary and developers of WP Bakery will edit next issues:
- Quite a lot of extra blocks that are generated on the front end.
- Unfinished configuration tool for responsive.
- Libraries are loaded when necessary and not necessary, it is difficult to control this process.
- Improper classes on the grid.
Pluses are much more. And this is good news! Certainly it is hard to describe all the features of VC in a single article. You can find more detailed instructions on the website of plugin developers. In our opinion the best solution is to purchase a premium theme with VC plugin already embedded. By doing so you:
- save time and money;
- get multifeatured and spectacular website with individual design.
How much does a website cost? No, honestly.
If you are considering a new website in 2017, you may be getting some quotes and proposals (and some sticker shock), and now have more questions than when you began. People are throwing a bunch of new acronyms at you (developers love acronyms), there are line items you’ve never even heard of before, and you are now realizing that you are going to have to ask for more budget. In fact, you might now be wondering why you can’t postpone this tedious process until another time. But forge forward, because here are some simple, no bullshit, real explanations of what you are in for.
Okay, why THAT price?
How the heck do agencies even arrive at that price? The first thing to know when getting quotes for a website is that you aren’t actually buying a product (okay, yeah, even though you do have a ‘thing’ at the end). Instead, you are actually purchasing a service, which equals time. When calculating a price, we first determine what you want your website to do, and then we go through a detailed evaluation to calculate how many hours it will take to create what you want.
At our agency, we simply determine how long it will take a strategist, a designer and a developer to work frantically at their desks each day in order to create your masterpiece (don’t settle for less than masterpiece, FYI). Naturally, the more things you want on your site, the longer it will take, because it’s going to mean more hours working frantically at our desks.
Give it to me straight, how much does a website cost?
Okay, let’s get down to the real reason you’re reading this. What does a business website cost? If you want a mid-size, informational website, the price will range between $10-20K. This is the most common size and price range. If you need a larger site with more advanced capabilities such as large e-commerce stores, private log in accounts or databases, your price can start at $25K and even get closer to $60K as the size and functionality increases.
Really, a website price can be as flexible as you are, because the amount of add-ons we can do to a site are endless and totally customizable. A good agency will line item each of these things in the quote so that you can make the final decision of what to keep, and what ideas to scrap.
Is it worth the price?
Let’s see, how can I put this? How many times have you said ‘Google it’? It’s so intertwined with our lives now that people use it as a verb. What does that mean for your business? It means that your customers, potential customers, suppliers and competitors are Googling you. And if you aren’t online (really?), or, if someone can’t easily navigate, find things and learn about you, they are simply going to leave and look for someone else.
So, what’s that worth to you? If your sales are anywhere over $1 million a year, I’d say it should be pretty high. Yes, absolutely a website is worth the price, and a custom website that is built with your specific company needs in mind is even more valuable. This is the most important marketing tool for your entire company, and low cost or rushed alternatives will actually cost you more in the long run.
How long will it take? (aka, I want it NOW)
Other than price, this is probably one of the most unrealistic misconceptions that people have about websites. I know, I’m like you, I want things now (thus why those new shoes are currently sitting in my closet). But, hey, remember above where we talk about how long it takes us to frantically work at our desks? Websites are complex, and it takes time for us to create the strategy and direction, the design and then code everything. Not only that, but we have to either create or gather all the content we are going to need. Where is all that copy and photography going to come from? We have found that on average, a site is going to take 3-6 months from start to launch.
SSL Certificates Explained – Everything You Need to Know for Your Website
What Is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate provides a method of encrypting data as it travels across the Internet to ensure the information cannot be intercepted for malicious purposes.
You can tell if a website has an SSL certificate by looking at the address bar of your browser. If the website has an SSL certificate, the URL in your address bar will begin with HTTPS, not HTTP. That extra “s” stands for “secure.” Most browsers will also show a “Lock” icon indicating that the connection is encrypted.
Do I Need an SSL Certificate?
You definitely need an SSL certificate if you have an e-commerce website or transmit any kind of sensitive information. More specifically, you should get an SSL certificate installed and connection encrypted if your website:
- Has user authentication (passwords and logins) to allow access to restricted information.
- Processes financial information (online orders, credit card numbers, bank accounts, etc.).
- Transfers or stores sensitive data: social security numbers, IDs, birth dates, license numbers, etc.
- Works with any kind of medical or legal information.
- Contains any kind of restricted proprietary or confidential information, legal documents, contracts, client lists, etc.
Where Can I Get an SSL Certificate?
Your hosting provider should be able to assist you in obtaining an SSL certificate. First, you need to purchase the certificate from a trusted vendor. Your web developer or hosting provider can order it for you, or they can refer you to a source. Typically, there is an annual fee to obtain a certificate, and the SSL-issuing authority may have to verify your identity (or the identity of your business) before issuing the certificate.
8 Ways to Boost Your Website Conversion Rate
This article will give you some tips and best practices to boost the conversion-to-visitor rate on your website. This ratio is a measure of how efficient your site is at making sales, so you want to focus your efforts on improving it. After optimizing your SEO and outreach strategies to bring more visitors to your site, you should expect more sales, right? Not necessarily. Simply getting people to your site is only half of the equation. You also need to convince them to buy. While there is no magic formula for becoming an eCommerce superstar, there are some powerful strategies you can implement that will lead to a higher conversion ratio.
4 Website upgrades to boost your conversion rate
- Optimize for mobile. This goes beyond responsive design (which is essentially a search-engine requirement anyway). Mobile optimization means presenting users with a clear, easy-to-use interface on their mobile device. Delivering key content and action points in a convenient way, and speeding up the process, will help more customers make purchases.
- Speed up checkouts. Online shoppers, and especially those on mobile devices, are impatient. Any hiccups in the checkout process risk losing a sale. Set up the checkout process to be as fast and convenient as possible for customers.
- Accelerate site speed. Customer attention spans are shrinking, and mobile users are especially tough when it comes to loading times. Avoid losing potential sales by setting up your site so it loads quickly on mobile devices. A few tips to do this include compressing your CSS scripts, optimizing lossless images, and limiting third-party advertising space.
- Improve product experiences. Simply having your products up on the site isn’t always enough. You need to present a carefully curated environment that combines concise copy and engaging images and videos that clearly demonstrate how the product works. Your site is your salesperson, so give it the tools it needs.
4 Ways to turn visitors into customers
- Attract the right traffic. More traffic to your site is usually a good thing. But you can maximize sales efficiency if the people visiting your site are already interested in your type of product. Make sure your content and marketing efforts are focused on attracting the right kind of customer – one who is already interested.
- Guide your customers. Simplicity is key. Design your mobile site so that important content is presented to viewers as fast as possible. The fewer clicks it takes to do what they want, the happier customers will be. Use call-to-action words and buttons to guide users toward the purchase phase.
- Build trust with customers. People buy more from brands they trust. Adding a security badge or protection guarantee can do wonders for convincing hesitant customers to buy. Trust is also about brand recognition. If you are a new company, it pays to incorporate icons from established companies like Google or Norton security to lend weight to your own.
- Offer flexible payment options. By offering guest checkouts (no need to set up an account), you can speed up the buying process. Some users will find alternative payment methods, such as Amazon Pay or PayPal, more convenient than entering their credit card information. Remember, this is all about efficiency.
Where should I start?
Implementing all of these improvements at the same time is not feasible for most businesses. While they are all important, there are a few that we recommend you start with because they deliver the best ROI initially. Go with a mobile upgrade. Nearly 50% of online sales are made with mobile devices, so mobile optimization is critical. Google’s increasing focus on mobile websites also cannot be ignored. By creating a streamlined mobile shopping experience, you’ll make search engines and customers happier.
Design a more personalized product experience. Use the tips about enhancing your product presentation to give users a complete understanding of your products. This will help them imagine owning the product and make them more confident about buying it. Finally, the faster you can establish trust with a new customer, the greater the chance that they make a purchase. At the same time, focus your efforts on rewarding loyalty from repeat customers.
Why Your Company Website Should Be Responsive
Does your website work just as well on a mobile device as it does on a desktop? If it doesn’t, you could be losing business.
Consider this, Google will be using mobile-friendly factors in its mobile search results starting on April 21, 2015. So, Google will start ranking your site higher if it’s mobile friendly. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly then you may be losing out to your competition!
As of January 2014:
- 90% of Indian adults have a cell phone
- 58% of Indian adults have a smartphone
- 32% of Indian adults own an e-reader
- 42% of Indian adults own a tablet computer
These stats confirm that more internet users are accessing your website via their smart phone or tablet and this trend will only continue to rise. If you want users to have the best experience of your site no matter what device they’re using, you need a mobile plan for your website content. While you could create a second website designed specifically for mobile devices, it is easier and more cost efficient to create one website with responsive design.
Responsive web design is a way to make websites viewable on any device. This is achieved by creating scaling content and elements that allow for the smallest amount of panning and scrolling while still delivering the same important content as when your website is viewed on a desktop/laptop computer.
There are many reasons to have a responsive design. It is easier to update and provide marketing for a single website. It is also easier to set up your SEO for one site rather than two. It is also cheaper to develop one website with content optimized for all screen sizes than to develop multiple websites catering to different screen sizes and devices.
Almost all the new websites we create at innovins are responsive. Our clients enjoy the ease of have only one site to manage. Users enjoy the simplicity and comfort of knowing they are getting the same experience and functionality on any device they use.
Responsive design may not be right for all businesses and sites on the internet but having a mobile action plan for your site is a must. Contact us to find out more about responsive website design and if it fits into your needs for your web presence.
5 Things To Look For When Your High Website Traffic Isn’t Converting Fast Enough
By this time, most businesses have a website; and justifiably so, as many people do their research online before choosing to become a customer or choosing to buy a particular product. Any business could almost be considered to be at a disadvantage if it does not have a website or at least some sort of online presence.
Here is a five-point checklist for when your traffic isn’t giving you much leads:
1. Is your web layout professional and your content fun or stale and boring?
A professional site is one that is designed taking several key factors into consideration. The cheaper a site looks, the less likely people will be to purchase what you are selling or sign up to learn more. Things like poor or jarring color choices, weird layouts and inconsistent navigation are definite no-nos for professional sites. How up to date is your website? Are you keeping up with accessibility trends? Is your site comparable to popular sites in terms of ease of navigation? On your actual content, you need to provide consistent, relevant and useful content. Be sure to update your site regularly (weekly or fortnightly). Try to establish a plan of the content you want to deliver, content that will add value to visitors to your site. Relevant content is in keeping with the theme of your site and useful content will assist your site visitors in their search for your product. How is your picture quality? In the e-commerce world, low-quality images are almost like a poorly maintained shop. Why should people buy from you if you don’t see the need to get clear high-quality images? How will they be sure that what they will get is really what you claim to be selling? Your web content can cause serious trust issues.
2. Is your website mobile friendly?
Most people these days are equipped with a smartphone and/or tablet. One thing these site visitors appreciate is the responsiveness of the website, that is, its adjusting to the smaller size screen so they can comfortably see and select what they desire. A mobile friendly site is bound to score points with users on a mobile device and result in a great user experience for those individuals. Many people use the time in transit, on the bus, train or plane, to make purchases and smartphones and tablets are the devices of choice for purchases on the go. Be sure that your calls to action are brought to the fore on the mobile version of your site just the same.
3. Are there clear calls to action throughout your website?
Don’t do all the fancy footwork on the home page and leave your site visitors hanging afterwards. To gain people’s trust you must be consistent. The converse is also true, sometimes site visitors are left hanging from the very beginning. If the page that you direct users to (landing page) lacks selling machinery, you will not be directing your visitors into conversion. In another breath, people need to know what you are actually selling. With so many informational sites around people can be on your informative pages or blog forever and not realize that you are actually selling something. When you make your links close in resemblance to banner ads or other off-site advertisements visitors to your site will avoid clicking them. Ads are usually overlooked and as a result, your leads and sales may be down. You may also be directing users to places other than where you want them to go. You may have many links to unrelated sites or content. Be sure that your phone number is clearly visible along with your other contact information. If people see no other way to contact you they may ignore your calls to action. Don’t go collecting too much information on your contact or sign up forms.
4. Who is monitoring your analytics and managing your web traffic?
In many businesses, the answer to this question is no one. This sad, simple truth could very well be the reason why your conversion figures are down. You have the machinery reigning people in, the paid ads, the SEO, the links scattered across other pages but when people get to your website you are unaware and so you don’t know how to cater to these people. Another thing to keep an eye out for is abandoned cart numbers. Many persons are interested in a product but they are turned off by something like shipping rates, the insecurity of your page or payment system. One way to improve your exposure is by adding a social sharing button to your website and to your blog. You may want to plan how you will increase traffic and areas to focus on as well as keep track of the finer details in the analytics month by month.
5. Is the traffic real and the right kind?
Of course in considering the analytics you need to think of the kind of traffic that is coming through. Spam sources of traffic can blow up your traffic numbers but your leads and sales will remain the same. If you decide to buy traffic, ensure that traffic is coming from a valid source. If your traffic isn’t coming from your target audience or the audience you shouldbe targeting your leads will not improve either. This calls for a re-examination of the factors that you consider when targeting the advertisements that are generating traffic for you. These factors include income level and education, geolocation and basic demographics. Targeting poorly or not targeting a set audience at all will likely get you high traffic but those people may not care about what you are selling, they may not need it or they may not be able to afford it. You can remedy this situation by ensuring that your paid traffic is valid and by learning about your target audience so you can determine the way to target them properly. You may need to check how your analytics is implemented. If the code is accidentally entered more than once, each visit may be counted more than once, giving misleading figures.
Web Design Brief: What should a client include in his briefing?
Web design brief is a critical document which involves client’s expectations and requirements. So, it should involve precision during its preparation.
Yet, many clients make the wreckless mistake of not giving it much thought. That results in conflict ultimately leading to late delivery or compromised quality to some extent.
Clear communication is the essence of quality production. So, today I’m pointing down the essential ingredients you should put on our brief to make the website work more manageable.
Small Introduction about you and your company
As a web design company, we always appreciate when clients are transparent about them and their business. It doesn’t mean we want to enter in the privacy zone. But the more we know about you and your business, the research process and system building become much fluent.
These are few good starting points:
- Start with a brief info about you and your company. A couple of paragraph draft like the business establishment, you and your business historical connection should make a great piece.
- Do you offer services or sell any products? If you do what are the types?
- The size of your business. Here we are talking about a number of employees rather than a turnover figure.
- Do you serve locally or your product sells in the global market?
- How would you describe your business to a user you want to sell? What is the unique selling proposition?
- Who are your direct competitors? And how do you differentiate yourself with them?
Objectives, Goals & Target Audience
Setting up precise objectives and vision is important to know that both parties are running the same marathon to achieve a common goal. Similarly, if you can describe the target market segments, it makes the whole web design process a breeze. As a client, you can consider to include these things in your web design brief checklist:
- Why do you need to re-design your website or build a new website?
- What didn’t you like or dislike about the old website?
- Do you have any design reference that inspires you?
- What are your ideal expectations from the website?
- Who is your target audience? Like end customers, stakeholders, corporate businesses, etc.
Budget & Timeline
Your budget & timeframes are key components for any web project. Depending upon the cash flow, the scope of your project is heavily defined. Here is what you need to add on your brief:
- What’s the estimated budget you have allocated for the website?
- If it’s a big project, would you like to pay as go basis?
- What’s the feasible method for payment?
- When do you like us to get started?
- Do you have any specific deadline for the website?
Website Features & Functionality
This is the meat of the long discussion. A client must be able to describe exactly what he needs from the web design company. Reveal your expectations no matter how stupid it sounds. Here is what you can put on web design checklist:
- What and how many sections will it have?
- Outline the functionality and feature you want to include on the website? Like search box, sliders, blog, product list, filters, payment gateway, etc.
- How do you like to have the menu structure? Do you want it to be divided into sub menu items?
- What should contain on the navigation bar?
- What have additional features you in mind? It can be anything from flash animation, newsletter subscription to receiving a donation through PayPal.
Design & Development
To make sure we are in the same boat, we need to understand the design concept you have in your mind before proceeding. And, this checklist helps to make a better decision.
- Illustrate the feel you need for your website. I.e. Masculine vs feminine, professional vs personal, dark vs energetic.
- Who will be responsible for the photography part?
- Who will take charge of the content?
- Do you need it be done on your preferred platform?
- Do you have any colours, fonts, style guidelines that you adore?
Other requirements
This may include the hosting and support options. Most of the web design company will have hosting plans for their clients. So, if you don’t have any hosting server, you can include that as well in the brief.
Why isn’t my website ready yet?
When you meet with us to discuss a new project we’re all at the beginning of a journey together, and we want to make that journey as smooth as possible for you. Whether the scale of the project is a month, or a year, we like to stick to roughly the same simple process each time to ensure that we’re working at our most efficient for you.
We pride ourselves on our flexibility from client to client and project to project but, by taking each step logically, there’s far less margin for error and misunderstanding on either side. We like to do this by using our 8 step plan. So, how does it work?
Step one: Project scope
This is the part where we’ll do a lot of talking, ask a lot of seemingly daft questions and try to get under the skin of your business. Some say nosy, we like to say ‘thorough’. Because it’s going to be a bespoke design and build this is the part where we need to know anything you want in your new website. As much as we would love to, we’ve not quite mastered the skill of mind reading just yet, so the general rule is: if you don’t mention it, chances are we won’t build it! With a bespoke build you can potentially get everything on your wishlist, but please don’t assume that it’s automatically going to be included in your new site if it hasn’t been mentioned. Because it’s being built from scratch for you, this means nothing is already ‘included’ as default functionality.
Step two: Content gathering
This is sometimes part of step one too. It may come as a surprise but a lot of the early work comes from you, the client. We need a little bit of your time and thoughts before we can take over and do our bit. Why do we ask for your content before we can even start? As discussed at length in an earlier blog post here, we want to make sure we do our best to make the design fit around your content, not squishing your content into an already-designed website. Otherwise you might as well have bought one off the shelf. Your text doesn’t necessarily have to be word perfect at this point but we need to know what you want to say and in which format, how many words etc. We have some nice software to help you make sense of your content, lay it out in an orderly fashion and share the task with multiple people and we’d be happy to help you use this to collate your thoughts.
Step three: Wireframes
This is where we’ll basically draw a line sketch of your future website so check we’ve got all of the components you’d expect and haven’t forgotten any crucial parts. It also works as a map to help us, and you, to make sure we’ve got each element in roughly the right place on the right page. For example if we’ve guessed that you would like plenty of imagery, minimal text and the logo top left, and then you see it drawn out and realise you’d like a lot more text and your logo front and centre, then we need to know these things before we move to design. At the wireframe stage it’s super easy to make any changes and swap things around.
Step four: Design visuals
These are just flat images, like a good old fashioned drawing, but done on a computer. This is largely because a. it’s 2017 and b. we’re a digital design agency which designs websites, among other things, so it makes loads more sense to draw it on a computer. That’s where our skills lie and it’ll be a truer reflection of the finished product than if we got our paints out. This is often the most exciting part of the project as you’ll get to see what your new website could look like! If we’ve fully understood your brief, and nailed the wireframes before moving onto the visuals, then these designs should be a pretty good representation of your future website. If not, this is the part where we’d really need you to flag anything that’s not quite right. Once you’re 100% happy with these we’ll ask you to sign them off so we can get going on the build. At the design stage it’s slightly more complicated to make changes to the fundamental layout of the page than it was during wireframing. Anything you suddenly think of at the build stage is much harder to try to squash in and can sometimes require extra project time to go back to the design stage and add it nicely.
Step five: Build
This is the point where we set up a development environment and build the flat visuals into a working website. The links will link, the nav will nagivate, images will… nevermind. We’ll also add all of the bells and whistles at this point too; things like hover effects, loading effects and snazzy stuff that will add the finishing touches that make sure your website looks better than your competitors’. At the build stage it’s much more complicated to make changes, and we’d need to have wrapped most, if not all, amends up in the earlier phases so that the developers are able to just put their heads down and code to their heart’s content, using the visuals and their own genius to bring your site to life.
Step six: Testing and quality assurance
We know your website is finished, and you may have even seen it at this point, so you’re eager to get it live – but we really wouldn’t want to launch it without feeling confident that it had been fully tested. We’ll run all of our tests and try to break it internally, and then generally pass it to you to try to break too. If you’re going to do something we didn’t expect with it we’d much rather know before it’s public. Once it’s been through us, our Head of Build and you and anyone you’d like to rope in, we’d be happy to schedule the launch date.
Step seven: SEO and visibility
We would strongly recommend that you enlist the help of an SEO pro before your site goes live. Unless of course you are an SEO pro. Although we design and build your website and have a loose understanding of SEO, we don’t actually specialise in the dark art itself. It’s a full time job to keep up with all of Google’s updates but there are people out there who live and breathe Search and all of its many mysteries – these are the people you want to hire to give your site a once over before we launch it. Luckily we know a few people who fit the bill and would be happy to put you in touch with them or help arrange a meeting.
Once you’ve picked who you’d like us to work with we’ll help them gain access and they’ll be able to check your new site has its very best shot at being at the dizzy heights of top of the first page on Google, or thereabouts. We like to compare choosing not having the SEO setup on your new site done to opening a shop in a remote part of town but not telling anyone your address. Instead you just hope that people who like what you’re selling will happen to walk past your shop while on their way to somewhere else. It’s a big internet out there and an SEO pro can help you make your presence known and increase your traffic exponentially.
Step eight: Blast off!
Once we’re happy with our work and, most importantly, you’re happy with your glorious new website, we’ll have scheduled a launch date in and the whole thing will be put live on the interwebs. Please note that there isn’t simply a Go Live Now button that can be pressed and hey presto! You’re online! The reason we say ‘schedule in’ is because it can take a little longer than this and we want to make sure that we have plenty of time to do it right. Because after all, we’re as proud of your new website as you are.
