Here are the eight steps we follow when you contact us for a custom web design project.
First, we gather information to gain a solid understanding of your business and website project by asking the some key questions such as:
We use this information establish project milestones, draft your proposal, and decide which content management system (CMS) to use. The most popular ones are Joomla, Drupal, WordPress (blogging) and Majento (eCommerce). We select the best one given the specific requirements of your project and the pros and cons of each CMS. If you decide to commit to our agreement, we will proceed to the next stage.
Planning involves developing your website’s architecture / sitemap. This includes your top navigation (main topics) and all of its submenus (supporting topics). Based on keyword research, preferences and conversion rates (if historical web analytics are available), we categorize your content into buckets.
Keyword research is listing the terms that you think your target market are using to find your website and then using the Google Keyword Tool to determine its competition, popularity and whether it is specific / broad enough. Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take or complete a desired action such as purchase your product or complete your contact form. A successful website attracts visitors from your target market and not just random ones.
The last step in the planning phase is to create a wireframe to depict the page layout or arrangement of your website’s content, including interface elements and navigational systems, and how they work together.
Based on all the information gathered, we create mockups for your website to show you the look and feel. Target market is most important factor consider because it needs to attract the right type of visitors. A website for a Vegas bar would look very different from one for an elementary school. A website for seniors might have to have a font size toggler to increase text size. Website mockups designed in Photoshop will be emailed to you in .jpg format for your feedback and review. Once you are satisfied that the chosen mockup matches your needs and tastes, we proceed with development.
We start off with a default installation of your chosen CMS in a private folder on my server. We transfer your approved website mockup into code and determine the positions where you need to manage your content. All CMS’ come with a default area where you page / post / article content will display on the page. However, if you want to manage / change banners or customize sidebars and footers, etc.. we have to establish widget / module / component positions for that.
If you want to add functionalities to your website, we will select, install and configure extensions for this. For example if you want online scheduling for your Joomla website you will have to install and customize an extension like JEvents. Each CMS that I mentioned has thousands of pre-developed extensions that can be edited to blend in with your website. This is much less expensive than starting from scratch.
We check to see that your website template is cross-browser compatible. This means that will load well on recent versions of all the major browsers such as Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
Once we have a good grasp of your website’s content and functionality, we create a mobile version. Mobile websites are much less complex than websites made to display on laptops, desktops and tablets like the iPad. Sidebars, javascript, and Flash animations are stripped out. Images are reduced. Navigation is greatly simplified. All of this is made possible with a custom mobile stylesheet (CSS).
Finally forms will be created and content will be inserted based on your sitemap. Search-engine-friendly (SEF) urls will be enabled. Meta data such as title tags, description tags, H1 tags (headings) will be customized based on keyword research, Google best practices and each page’s content.
Here we check everything by doing everything we can to find errors. We ensure that your forms have proper data validation and the all information is properly captured. We ensure Google Analytics or other web analytics are properly tracking your website. Once you are satisfied, we go export your website database and transfer the files to your server, and go live! If you had an existing website, we write 301 redirects from your old pages to your new pages.
Just because your website is launched, does not mean that it is over. You need to maintain fresh content to maintain your search engine rankings. Blogs are the best way to achieve this as long as write posts relevant to your target market at least once per week. This may seem like a tall order but it is well worth it. Although every website we launch has a CMS attached to it, it is wise to also purchase a web maintenance plan because sometimes when we visit websites we developed sometime after they have launched, we undoubtedly discover errors or font styles introduced. With web maintenance plans customized for your needs and budget, we can keep an eye on your website to ensure that it maintains its search engine rankings and remains error-free.
“Jeanette is a highly skilled web developer that helped Tenduit rapidly develop a professional B2B web site. Jeanette's strong organizational skills ensured development and revisions were always performed in a timely and high quality manner. Throughout the process the breadth of Jeanette's knowledge was invaluable in helping us make effective design and implementation decisions. I would hire Jeanette for future projects.”
- Bruce Flory
Marketing Manager
Tenduit Software in Austin, TX
“Jeanette's extensive knowledge of web development was evident when she was able to quickly construct an internal company web page for my product that functioned as an information source and download site for sales representatives. Jeanette also helped me with the design of sales literature that needed to comply with strict corporate guidelines yet be appealing to both distributors and end-user customers. I found Jeanette to be very responsive, efficient and a great web development resource.”
Jill Rogers
Marketing Manager, Microsurgery
Carl Zeiss Meditec in Dublin, CA
Jeanette Kwok Web Design
San Francisco Bay Area, CA
San Jose, CA
New York, New York
(925) 548-0716
jeanette (at) jeanettekwok.com
Refer a new website client to us, and we will pay you 10% of the first invoiced amount we receive from them. New clients must mention who referred them during their initial consultation.
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