10 Things I Need From You Before Designing Your Website

Beginning a relationship with a new website client is always fun and exciting. Many of my clients are ready for their new site yesterday but as I explain to all my clients designing a website that performs it is a marathon, not a sprint. Much is needed before I even begin the designing stage. Today I’m sharing the 10 items I need from you before I begin designing your website.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve walked you through the steps on designing your own site. I’ve covered what every website needs along with what you need on each of the most common pages you should have. You can check out the previous posts in the series by clicking the links:

1o Things You Should Have on Your Business Website

What You Should Include on Your Home Page

What You Should Include on Your About Page

What You Should Include on Your Contact Page

If you have decided that your time is valuable and you want to outsource your website to a designer like myself, there are a few items that if you have them ready from the start it will make your designers life so much easier, and will also get your website up and running much quicker.

Here are the 10 items I need from you before designing your website –

1. Your domain name – purchase your chosen domain name.
2.  Website hosting – purchase hosting and provide the account details. It will be through your hosting provider that I begin the first steps in building your site.  
3. Business email address – Provide the email you want to be used on the site as well as the email you would like used for receiving inquiries from your contact form.
4. Your brand style guide – If I did not help you develop your brand please provide your current style guide. Not sure what a style guide is, check out my blog posts on branding. Your brand style guide will help me keep your website design on target with all of your other branding.
5. Completed website questionnaire – I provide all my website design clients with a questionnaire about their business and what are their goals for the site, it also covers evaluating your competitors and really helps give me the long terms goals for your website.
6. Your completed Pinterest board – I always begin each website design with a visual representation of the look and feel for your site. In addition to your Pinterest board, your style guide, and your completed questionnaire I can provide you with an on-point visual of where I see the design going.
7. Completed website content planner – This is by far one of the most important pieces I need – I provide this planner to all my clients and it breaks down every page of your website. Your completed planner lets me know the pages you want to be included within your website.
8. Have your call to action figured out – Websites need a goal and it’s your call to action that brings people to the goal. Knowing your call to action prior to building your site will allow me to determine the most effective placement and implication on each of your website pages before we even begin.
9. Website copy for all the pages – I, unfortunately, do not know every business that is out there, so I am unable to effectively provide the words needed to best describe what you do. Each page will have words and they need to be your words. If writing is not your strong suit then I highly encourage hiring a copywriter to help you with your content. Here is an article that I found helpful. – 35 Copywriting Tips & Tricks from the Pros
10. Website photos for all the pages – We live in a visual world and while words are important, your photos help tie the story together. Make sure your photos are high quality (I optimized all my client’s photos for their site). If you are using stock images, always make sure you have purchased the right to use the photos. And please do not grab a photo from Goggle to use on your site. It will only get you into trouble.

If these 10 items are in my hands or your chosen designer’s hands in the early stages of your website build, you will be well on your way to a successfully performing website.

In my last two posts, I’ll begin helping you get your website on Goggle and looking at SEO tips that will help drive traffic to your new site.

Until next time.

Karri