Questionnaires & Consultations
4 One-on-One Consultations
This is the process of how we handle our projects as well as going through your project. We want to help you along the journey, so we schedule consultations where we can discuss the goals of your website throughout the whole process. We will be going over your branding ideas to apply to the website. Based on your ideas and our concepts, we will work towards identifying exactly what you want and need. The training call will take place after the website is published. Depending on what service you purchase, we will guide you through what you might need to do on your own and answer any other questions you may have. This is unique for every client.
6 Comprehensive Questionnaires with Feedback
Our questionnaires provide us with important information to apply to your website. These questionnaires are meant to help you clearly articulate the entirety of your brand, goals, etc. The questionnaires cover branding, website overview, specific content, email marketing, and google workspace. You can avoid writing if you prefer to go about the questions over a call, in a video, or with images. Let us know how you prefer to relay your answers and we will accommodate your needs.
Themes & Migration
Destination Vision Board (Includes Pinterest Board Set Up, Color Palette Selection, and Font Selection, New Brand Board with Three (3) Revisions Included)
Destination vision boards are all about the client and what the end goal is. A destination vision board contains facts about the client's company as well as their unique ideas and aspects that they want included on their website.
Install WordPress, plugins, and custom theme
WordPress is our chosen website-building platform. It assists us to ease through customizing every detail to your liking. Plugins are added based on what you need for your website. This includes forms for inputting information, search engines, data tracking, and much more! Custom themes are the basis for the functionality of your website. Essentially, it is how your website is styled and appears consistent on the various pages. We will start with a fresh copy of WordPress, necessary plugins, and your preferred theme based on your website requirements. This will allow you to have the ability to fully customize everything how you prefer and add on when needed.
Migrate any Previous Content
We go through time where a client is able to see the website and they are able to tell us what changes they want made to it prior to launching. If someone has a previous website, we can migrate it for them. So, if it's a WordPress website, we can take the exact full website and migrate it to our servers and start implementing the care plan stuff immediately. If the website is not with Word Press and with Square Space or Weeby, it is unfortunately owned by them so we cannot just take the website and pull it. If it is owned by Square Space, or Weeby, we would basically be rebuilding the website on our page builder. So again, that's just kind of depends on if we're bringing over all their content for the client. We are also doing a redesign anyway, so we may work on the redesign and put in their content into it. Sometimes, a client may need to get off of their website's host because the host is about to charge them again. So, we may like rebuild their website because with our page builder, we can build any website that is out there. Again, the client is not choosing a theme or anything, so we could build any website that's out there with our page builder to look just like it was over on Square Space or Weeby. From there, we go through the rest of the website process. If the client wanted to get something up and running right away or how it was before, we have ways with those tools to export certain content.
Dynamic Launches
Dynamic Launch Journey to Fit your Specific Needs (Including Coming Soon Landing Page, Development Launch, Soft Launch, Rolling Revisions and Additions, and Full Launch)
We tailor every project to our clients! Through our consultations, we will determine the best launch journey for our client. Some clients come to us with an existing website, and they have security needs right away. So, we may transfer over their existing website, as is, and get them onto our care plan. We then will do the security cleanup and get the website to where it is safe and stable. We then go through the other process of doing their branding or something else for the client and start doing their redesign of their website. We also have clients that are starting totally fresh. Some of them have nothing. Those clients may say, “Hey! I have this thing coming up, and I need to have a coming soon page. I also need to have a bio and maybe an area for people to subscribe.” So, we may create a coming soon page, or almost like a landing page for them that is specific to where they are. Just so they can have something up right away, as their website is getting built. We also have some launches in the back end, where we can do some of our other integrations that we need to do.
We also have some clients that have had a website live, and they are ready for the new website to be out there. However, they don't want to tell people just yet it's out there. So, we may do a soft launch. This could be for an existing website or a new website. A soft launch is where the website becomes live on the Internet and anyone could find it, but it is not announced or broadcasted. This way, the client can get used to having their website or start to get more things in there. Sometimes they also just want their website up and running but they're still adding content, so some areas say, “coming soon”. With this, we have other clients that may have 7 pages on the menu, but they only have the content for one or two so far. For example, an “About” or “Contact” page. We may hide all the other pages, and those can be worked on in the back end. We just work with our clients on this and figure out what works best for them.
Journey also does a more “rolling process” or a phased approach. This approach is especially for busy clients that know they want a lot done on their website, but they can't dedicate a lot of time on it. So instead, we may give them some of the initial things and then from there, the client starts giving us some of the additional changes that they want to make. We may slowly start to integrate their branding changes or whatever it may be. But it is done in a slow process and sometimes that happens over the course of even a year. It is still a part of their website package, but we are just doing a phased approach on when those changes are happening, as opposed to doing one thing at once! This all just depend on the client’s specific needs, how we approach the needs, and what is best for them on their journey!
Revisions is where Journey will revise your website and make changes if it is needed. Even though the website is live, Journey is still going to be able to make revisions and add additional things to your website. Additions can include designs and information or even pages that you want uploaded onto your website.
Custom Elements & Pages
5 Custom Designed Elements (Include Header, Footer, Navigation, Mobile Navigation, and Sidebar)
The five custom designed elements will all depend on what style website you have. Journey will create a custom Header, Footer, Navigation, Mobile Navigation, and a Sidebar for your website. This has to do with what style website the client has and what they are purchasing. The header is the top part of the website and we will create something custom for them when they're doing a full website for us. These are just some of the components that people are aware of to be able to compare with other things that people do. We are not sure why these things wouldn't automatically be included on the site build because they are important for all of them, but these are just the regular elements.
4 Custom Designed Standard Pages (Include Home Landing Page with Slider, About, Contact with Form, Sitemap with Search)
Journey will customize your home landing page with a slider, your “about” page, a contact with form page, and a sitemap with search page. They will all flow together and look unified within the website.
4 Custom Designed Special Pages (Such as: Advanced Blog Section or Service Section)
Journey will be able to customize a blog section or service section for you website. This will allow FAQ's to be answered in a unique and professional way. A blog page will also provide more in depth facts about your website and the company that you own. Blogs attract customers and allow questions and facts to be answered in an easy and effective manner. Special pages may depend on which package that the client chooses. For example, we may build a blog where it has a blog feed and it is just showing the blog content. There are also options where we could have like an advanced blog section or services section. So for these, an example is; say someone had their different categories and they wanted a landing page for each category that has more of a description or welcome into the category.
6 Custom Designed Store Pages (Such as: Online Store, Single Product, Product Category Archives, Cart, Checkout, Account)
There are pages that a storefront must create and have on their website. Each page within the website will all have the same brand and theme. This is so that the website/store looks professional and thought-out. Journey will also be sure to check the responsiveness of each page within the website as well as the main website's responsiveness.
Lead Magnet Design and Automation
Lead Magnet Design, Set-up and Automation (Includes Custom Designed Lead Magnet, Custom Designed Pop up or Subscribe Form, Branded Email with Lead Magnet for existing Subscribers, and Branded Email with Lead Magnet for New Subscribers)
Some people do not want to just give you their e-mail address unless they're getting something for it. So, a lead magnet is basically a way to give them a freebie to get them to give you their e-mail address. This way, you are not just enticing them with, “Hey, stay up to date!”, and instead you are saying, “Hey, sign up for this free (whatever it may be that they are going to get for signing up).” Then, that thing gets sent to them as a ‘thank you’ for signing up. Now, you have their e-mail address, and they have the free thing so a lead magnet maybe a variety of different things. We help clients create their designer lead magnets or set up the integration for the lead magnet. For example, the welcome e-mail I mentioned before, instead of it just being a ‘welcome’ e-mail, it may have a link to a special item. Whatever that item is, or folder of items, depending on what it is, is the thing that is getting shared with them to their subscribers and there are different ways to set that up. Sometimes, it's on the website and is a password protected area and we're setting the password. Other times, it's a document that they are downloading. We have had some examples of lead magnets that would be like, “Get five lock screens for your phone” or download the 10 things to do this summer”. You may have other ones that are a quiz, like “Do this quiz”. So, we have all different types of things. Some people have like a mini devotional, like “Get your five-day devotional”, and those can even get to the point of sending them emails on the five days after the subscription. Those are all forms of lead magnets and automations related to the lead magnets. With some of our website builds, it includes that. This is also available as an add-on for anyone that needs it. It is also something that can be used for additional hours if that's needed at different times to freshen up and add lead magnet onto a website
SEO Integration (Including Installation, Automation, and Keywords)
For a client that's on our higher website care plan, we will go through and do the SEO integration to the point of doing automation keywords. So, there are ways to set it up so that the tool works for you. We can also look at your content and create what would be some of the different keywords and to help you get off to a good start for your search engine optimization. So not only are we just installing the plugin, but then actually integrating it all the way. There are also different things we can do for search engines that show the snippet that they would see on search engines as well as on social media.
Testing & Usability
5 Types of Comprehensive Testing
We run various tests on different aspects of the website at the end of the process to see if anything is working improperly. Responsiveness testing covers the layouts of every page and adjusts the pages for every possible screen size. Optimizing Buttons will test to make sure that the website will be cleaned and will work as efficiently as possible. Broken links ensures buttons/links on your website will be loadable and accurate.
Mobile Responsive Design
Desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones are commonly used to access websites. These devices have different-sized screens which require the need for website layouts to be adjusted. By modifying the pages to respond to the various sizes of screens, we ensure that the content will look excellent when scrolling.
Add Your Content for Optimized Usability
The Trailblazer web design service allows the client (you) to DIY your own website. We will create the home page and the main menu, but the content is up to you. If you are paying us to add pages for your website, (Explorer, Navigator, or eCommerce web design services) we will take the information from your questionnaires to build the best User Experience. People will be able to better interact with and navigate through your website when we apply UI/UX principles. We will help ensure that your visitors enjoy the visual appearance (UI-User Interface) and usability (UX-User Experience) of your website.