
STRATEGY AND MESSAGING
Most of our clients come to us because they like the way our websites look. But they stay with us because they perform. Our very first client is still with us and we are very proud of that.
Strategy and messaging are the most important part of the web design process and the part that even seasoned professionals often don’t seem to understand. And it’s hard. Defining your messaging strategy is a lot like the game of GO. It is a question that takes a second to ask and a lifetime to answer. But don’t be intimidated, just 2% better is enough, you don’t have to be a million times better, just better.
If you can articulate what it is that you do differently and BETTER than your competition, marketing your brand is just about getting this message in front of as many people as possible, and never in the history of the world have we had more people on the planet or the sophisticated tools to get your messaging in front of them.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE, USER EXPERIENCE AND CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION
For more complex websites we recommend sketching out how users will interact with it in real life. The organizational structure, the connection between different pieces of information and the framework that helps the user understand those connections. The hierarchy of information, categories at the top, followed by more specific subcategories for the user to navigate through. The navigation and user experience, how the user moves through pieces of content and/or information. Information architecture is all about finding ways to help the user navigate the website in order to reach their goal. This includes:
• Competitor Review
• Business Goals Review
• Strategy & Funnel Identification for 3 key pages
• Sitemap Creation
• Medium Fidelity Wireframe for 3 key pages

HOMEPAGE DESIGN
Your website is your brand’s first point of contact, before a customer, client or member comes to your store or offices, they’ll visit your website. Contrary to the old adage, people DO judge a book by its cover.
Your homepage is a critical aspect of your website, this is where visitors decide (in milliseconds) if they’ll stay or go, so we focus on that first. Once you’re armed with your value proposition/messaging, you need to apply it to every part of your digital presence – especially your website.
We start the process by creating three to five different homepage mockups. Then you choose the one that you “kind of, sort of “ like the best; we’ll then make revisions until you LOVE it. This is a great technique to focus in on what you are looking for and create a complete design that knocks people’s socks off!

INTERIOR PAGE DESIGN AND MOBILE MOCKUPS
Now we need to expand upon the design themes that the homepage has introduced and apply them to the rest of the website to create a cohesive and highly engaging entity. The best way is to identify all key pages and have a designer do mockups of each using the stylesheets from the homepage and the layout of the wireframes. This provides explicit instruction for the engineering team to match them on the development server and serve as templates for the rest of the website.
Mobile optimization is a given. If we use a platform like Shopify or WordPress, the basic foundation is responsive, meaning the design adapts to mobile devices and tablets. But if a client needs something to look a specific way on mobile devices, we also like to create mobile mock-ups. For fully custom websites mobile mock-ups are even more important so the programmers know exactly what to code, eliminating unnecessary revisions and excessive QC.

CONTENT CREATION
Quality imagery, text and video are the most important part of a website. A simple website with gorgeous imagery will look way better than a well-designed website with poor imagery.
“Repurposing” existing content only goes so far. People crave fresh information. Once you have your strategic roadmap, you need to start applying it to every bit of communication that your organization produces including your website. Every single word should propel customers towards your goal. Every single image should get their attention and excite them.
One of the most important parts of a website is great imagery. Even one terrible image will erode your brand and lower your prices; but consistently great imagery will drive sales, leads and engagement.
Video completes the trifecta. We’re not talking infomercials: we’re talking about compelling, interesting, and emotionally-engaging storytelling that can bring your organization to life online.

DEVELOPMENT AND CODING
Before we code your website, we start with a discovery session. This session includes hours of conversation, research and sometimes even building a basic prototype. There are hundreds of platforms and literally millions of pre-built digital components, that offer many features that you may be looking for and can cut out a ton of custom development time.
But the only way to know if we can use those pre-built components, and benefit from the existing code that others have written, is to do a formal interview about key features, how they work.
Then once we have defined the functionality and decided on the a code base, our engineers install the basic framework and program the homepage on our development server to match the approved design pixel for pixel. This is called the “Alpha” work period. After that we program the interior pages. This is the “Beta” work period.
Lastly we do an intensive QC on the different operating systems, browsers and devices with a polish pass to make sure nothing was missed before we go live.

DEPLOY AND OPTIMIZE
When we launch a website, we want to make sure that it will perform. Branding and marketing is all about the data. So, to ensure success we do an SEO Sweep and install Heatmap and Analytics code which allows you to track the performance of your website.
This is where the data comes in. We call it “The Wheel of Fortune”. Here is the formula:
Look at how the Strategy is performing in real life: Everything starts with strategy so you need to look at the heatmaps and see if users are interacting with the website as you planned and if not, adjust the strategy accordingly.
Look at your Advertising: You want to make sure the strategy is properly applied to your ads and that it is driving the “right kind of traffic”. This is important because getting people to click on ads is not hard. Getting the RIGHT people to click on ads is much more difficult.
Look at the Homepage and Landing Pages: You need to make sure the key pages of the website are doing what they are supposed to do and adjust if they aren’t. Driving traffic to your website is easy with paid ads. Getting people to buy stuff is the hardest part of marketing.
Always look at you Heatmaps and Analytics: Now that you have a great strategy, great ads and a great landing pages, you need to constantly watch how well they perform in the real world over and over agin because the world stops for no one. This is why we call it “The Wheel of Fortune”.