How we plan, build & launch your business website: Our 4 step process, explained
If you’re in the professional services sector and it’s been a while since you had your website redeveloped, or if it’s your first time appointing a digital agency, the process of website design and development might not always seem clear.
You may be asking: How does an agency know what I want it to look like? Do they make sure I can add and manage content afterwards? And what about if my current website feels like an absolute mess?
Well, no challenge is too challenging when it comes to developing (or redeveloping) a website. Whether it’s your first or tenth time revamping your brand or digital presence, our approach is all about making things easy for you.
In that spirit, we’re laying down our full process for building a business website in this thorough explainer guide, so you know exactly what to expect and when.
Okay, quick one to start - what’s a ‘business’ website compared to a normal website?
‘Business’ in this sense refers to any company in the professional services sector, covering law, legal, accounting, insurance, planning, financial services and any other similar fields.
These websites are a different beast compared to other sectors (e.g. theatre & arts, third sector, destinations, life sciences & medical, education and more) and they require different things.
A brief rundown of pages that a typical business website needs:
Compelling Home page
Services page detailing what you offer
Deeper pages for each service (this helps for Google search and ranking)
Case studies
One individual landing page per case study
About
Team
News
Contact
Sectors (optional)
So that’s what a business website looks like - how do we go about making one?
Our approach for all business website development projects includes 4 major steps:
The process starts with a higher level of collaboration with you, the client, to begin with - but the level of your involvement required naturally declines as we work through the steps.
Our 4 step PLAN, CAPTURE, DEVELOP & PUBLISH process is all about making things easier for clients, and this is how we do it.
PLAN
It starts with a kick-off session and client involvement
After we’ve conducted our free consultation and you’ve signed off our bespoke proposal, the project is green-lit and ready to go. We begin with a kick-off session where we go deeper into your brand, business, and your objectives for the project.
We analyse what you want your new website to look like and do, along with assessing sites (from inside or outside your industry) that you like or dislike. We discuss your requirements for what your website needs, and conduct any live research and ideas-generation to make sure we’re on the same page.
This is your chance to mould your business’ digital vision. We listen and advise, and help you shape your development to make sure it performs how it should.
Next, a content audit to assess what we have and what we need
The strategy for building a website all starts in the sitemap. This is effectively a diagram that lists out all the pages of your new website. This can be as detailed as we need, and include notes on the sections of text that need to be on each individual page.
From this we’ll look at your current website (if applicable) and conduct a content audit to see what text and media you already have that we can bring across to the new site. We’ll identify any missing gaps, plus any content that needs further development.
This is also the stage where we remap your URLs if necessary, and develop new and improved page titles.
CAPTURE
Time to get the content: text, photos, video
Now we know what content we’re missing, we know what content we need.
TEXT
We make it easy for time-poor companies by capturing all the text content we need via interviews held with you or your appointed team members. These audio-recorded conversations have a minimal impact on your company’s time or resources, but they mean we leave with a raft of rich, expert information shared by the people who know your business the most.
These sessions are short - and can be remote!
Depending on the amount of content we need, we can interview your team in a matter of hours. And if it can’t be in person, that’s no issue, as we can work remotely via Google Meet or Zoom.
PHOTOS
With our multi-skilled team, we can capture photos at the same time as the text content. Imagery can include new team headshots and staff reportage (i.e. lifestyle shots around the office) for a uniform, slick and clean representation of your brand online.
This session(s) garner hundreds of photos for us to populate your website with, but they go much further than that; they’re perfect for social posts, social channel identity, print collateral, e-newsletters and other forms of marketing.
But most importantly, they humanise your brand by bringing your team to the forefront and enhancing trust and engagement in your customers.
VIDEO
Capturing video can also happen during the same session (but depending on requirements, may need a second, short session to capture everything needed). Footage of your team in action, your premises, staff interviews, B-roll; there’s no end to what can be achieved.
Again, these multi-purpose elements are fantastic pieces of content for key sales pages, for deeper content on your site, and for your social media strategy.
DEVELOP
We produce an interactive prototype
Whilst our content team is busy preparing and acquiring the content, our web team is busy designing and developing an interactive prototype of your new website.
This is an offline version of your website that you can click around and use like a real website, so you can see and feel exactly how it’ll look when it’s built.
This is where we can iron out any design changes or content edits, and you’ll sign off knowing what your final build will look like.
We solve your hosting and DNS issues
Before we think about going live, we discuss any potential domain name changes, along with who currently hosts your website, emails, and any related queries.
If you’re digging through old notebooks for passwords and trying to remember the name of a web developer you knew 10 years ago, that’s a thing of the past; we stitch together all your digital assets into one neat tapestry, bringing your hosting and domain management under one roof, managed and maintained by our web experts.
That means that when we set the site live, there are no last minute scrambles for ‘who owns what’ or where your original DNS is pointing. We have everything set and ready to go.
PUBLISH
We build, test and launch 🚀
We finish building the site, populating it with the new content as we go. We’ll add you into the system to review it and use it like a website visitor would. Once you’re happy, we’ll soft launch and push it live.
This is the testing phase, where our team and your team will navigate around the site and flag up any final edits or changes to make.
After this, we can officially sign the site off as ‘live and kicking’, and the content and social strategy kicks in.
Start your business website project
Find out more about how we help professional services with their brands, websites and content.
Professional services websites →
Website development FAQs
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In regards to timelines, we can be as flexible as you need.
If you have a pressing deadline - an event or exhibition, perhaps - and you’d like it to be up and running for then, we can work with you to a develop an achievable timeframe.
But typically, with no barriers in the way and with prior planning, a new website can be pushed live in as little as 3-5 weeks.
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This answer can really vary depending on what you want the project to involve. Get in touch to have a chat and we can work out what you need.