7 Things Clients Need to Know Prior to Redesign
In the mist of Covid-19 (Corona Virus), we at JDS WebDesign are hoping everyone is safe, washing your hands frequently, sneezing and coughing in your elbow, and practicing social distancing. Over the next several weeks, we are planning on blogging about how to make your website more business friendly. We will have some tutorials on our favorite plugins and features, which will make your site more efficient.
Many web designers and some agencies are so excited to secure a new project, that they forget to educate their new client. One of the first things that I do with all my new clients is to forward a questionnaire. This questionnaire helps to establish 7 important elements. I used to refer to them as the 7 (un)deadly sins.
Brand. Content. Search Engine Optimization. Security. Responsive Design. Intellectual Architectural. Hosting. Making sure you are on the same page with your new prospective client with regards to each of these critical areas is so important and really can mean the difference in a good design project or a nightmare project.
Branding
Branding, what is the purpose of the website. Who is the target audience? What is the site owner trying to accomplish? What are the pain points of the target audience? How can the website solve those pain points? You should be creating a website for a select group of visitors. They should take one look, and realize that you can solve their pain points. Making sure you know your client’s target audience, goals and objective, and having an actionable plan on how to accomplish the goals and objective is so important.
Content
Content is king. Do not wait for your client to provide content!!! Once the brand is clearly establish, if you are a good content writer, then begin working on the content. Show the content to the client, and if they want to add to the content…make sure you clearly advised the client, that the content is for the target audience.
Search Engine Optimization
How are you driving visitors to your site? While pay per clicks (PPC) and social media post are good marketing strategies, I still am a strong believer in good old fashion organic traffic. Creating a search engine optimization (SEO) plan is so important. Driving visitors to your site, and measuring visitors using analytics reports.
While SEO can become a boring topic prior to the design stage, putting in some early work goes a long way toward a successful project.
Security
Making sure you have a secure site is very important. Does the site have secured socket layer (SSL)? Google wants all site to be secured, and while it does not penalties unsecured site…it does not reward them either. Are you backing up your site on a non hosting platform? Cloud based is my favorite, and are you backing up your site on a daily basis. Having your site monitored on a daily basis, looking for any suspicious activity, is so important.
It only take having your site hacked once, for you to realize the importance of having a secured site.
Responsive Design
Did you realize that most visitors view websites via their smart phone, or tablet? Your site must be responsive. Do not speculate if your site is responsive or not? Make sure this is discussed prior and set up guidelines and expectations.
You can check to see if your site is responsive on “Am I Responsive?“.
Intellectual Architectural
Intellectual architectural (IA) is a fancy term for navigation and sitemap. Having a simple and easy to follow navigational (menu) system is so important. Not wanting visitors to have to hit search box, especially with regards to pain points is so critical. Spend a few extra moments discussing how navigational system is going to be design, and why.
Hosting
Would you allow your new $50,000 vehicle receive a car wash from your local boy scouts troop? No! No way! Then why would you place your six figure re-design on a low cost, unsecured, slow page load shared hosting web site hosting plan. To save a few bucks, and potential run the risk of getting your site hacked. Make no sense to me, spend the few bucks and sleep well at night.
Image courtesy of Verena Yunita Yapi.
JDS WebDesign is a Web Design and Brand Marketing Agency located in Marietta, Georgia. We create AWESOME on line presence for Start-ups and Influential People/Organizations. To learn more about us or how we can help you and your organization, you can contact us or schedule a meeting.
Join our mailing list to keep up with JDS WebDesign and find get tutorials and information about how to improve your website or business.
