Are you wondering how to get a website faster? You already got yourself a perfect web designer that understands your needs and vision but now you want your website yesterday? Cool, then help yourself by helping your web designer.
Here I will list the most important things that your project will need and if you have them at the start of work then you will get your website in no time, provided that you got yourself a professional.
1. Your business or project basic information
Your business/project basic information, vision and mission statements, SWAT analysis, and anything that spells your business. That might also be your full project name, your financial goals, website visitor goals, anything that would help your web designer in understanding your requirements and vision. A good web designer will probably ask for that information at the start to understand the scope of the project even before quoting you, but if they didn’t you will highly benefit yourself if you inform the designer of these details. You have a special connection to your own project that other people don’t have yet. To really portrait that love, you need to express it with as much information as possible. I say that not only to help your web designer but a lot of the time it helps you as a customer. When you put your own business/project idea into words, you start to understand it better yourself and get a lot out of that understanding. I have a questionnaire for web design quotes that you are free to use as an inspiration for where to start. I also recommend the QLD business advice page where they share a lot of beneficial information on where to start when you are making a business plan. If this bit gets you stumped, get a good business coach who will not only help you understand your processes best but will also keep you on your toes while motivating all the way through.
2. Hosting information
Your web developer might need access to your hosting for multiple reasons:
- To install WordPress or other platforms.
- For website hosting information and performance checks.
- To get technical support in case the website is not performing as expected.
- Access to WordPress inner files through cPanel.
- For caching (if your hosting provider has that option)
- To troubleshoot if WordPress is getting errors.
- To remove malware, secure your website and other.
- If you won’t have hosting through your web developer, check if you hosting plan has an option of adding other people to your account. If not, create an account using a password that you are comfortable sharing. Once the project is done, and you don’t have maintenance plans with the same developer, change your passwords.
3. Branding
In short, you need a logo in SVG and PNG formats, branding colours in RGB and HEX colour codes, and font files or project links (for Adobe and Google fonts) ready. There are multiples ways how you can source that information and get yourself a perfect brand, and depending on your situation I would point out a few of those:
- If you are a small business or need a website for a small project and you are just starting out with a very limited budget, I would recommend Canva. This might sound very unreasonable for LuAru Studio to say because I offer branding as one of the extras, but I repeat all through my own branding that customer’s requirements are more important to me. It would be way more beneficial to invest in tools that get you closer to getting revenue faster than spending money on things that don’t get an immediate return. Branding is very important; I believe in it entirely but if you spend all your money on looking good but don’t have money left to run the actual business there is no sense in that. If your budget is very limited, it’s ok to get very basic needs met with DIY visuals that represent you and invest in a complete brand once you have your revenue going.
- If you are a small business with dedicated resources – get yourself a professional. At this point Canva is not going to meet your needs and it’s better to have someone who understands your niche and customer needs and will prepare your brand in the way that represents you best. You will not regret having a brand done in a way that shares your message and doesn’t cause you headache in the future.
- If you are a big business, then you probably already have a whole marketing team working on your message and representation.
4. Web Copy
This one similar to branding can be done by you because you know your project best, or you can outsource it. Copywriting professionals know how to keep your visitors engaged and if that is what you require, then I highly recommend getting a copywriter for your content. However your choose to proceed this is usually the place where the web design process gets stuck. Your web designer will want to return the finished project. The sooner you get them the copy the faster they can make it into the final version it needs to be. If you have it at the start, you will even skip the bit where you see some Latin texts that don’t even make any sense in Latin. If you get yourself a professional that does SEO, ask them for keywords, trust me that process usually provides a good insight of what people are looking for and hence, a good idea of what kind of copy you should share.
5. Images
Unless you are creating a 90s HTML website, you will want it to have a lot of visuals (but not too many) to break the copy and keep your visitors engaged. People can’t read long texts without a break, especially in today’s world that races for our attention, giving them visual breaks keeps your visitor relaxed and interested. It’s up to your contract to agree on who is sourcing the visuals. If it’s your job, get ready early. That way the project won’t hold off because while web designers can have other sample images in place in the design stage, they will wait for the actual images before they can proceed into the development stage (less clutter to your website media files). Also, source out already optimized images or check if the designer knows how to do that themselves. Large image files will clutter your website and hinder its performance, hence ruining the user experience in the end. You should use a professional photographer if your visuals are unique to your business, if what you need is more general content, there are platforms like pexels.com, unspalsh.com, and similar where you can get images for free. Just don’t go overboard with very staged, overused stock images as this will make your website less attractive. Use Pinterest or similar, if your designer is sourcing the visuals, to give them a general idea of what you like.
6. Due date
If the designer doesn’t provide you with this information be sure to let them know your own timeframe requirements. As with anything in life some projects take longer than others but if you leave this bit to chance, the end might never come. It’s always good to have a goal in mind and plan accordingly.
Final notes on getting your website faster
A professional web designer will ask you to provide all of these details. If they don’t, the end result might be like a lottery for you. You don’t know what you get until you see it. There is a chance that you win but it’s more likely that you won’t. As a customer of many services myself sometimes it’s terribly hard to say what you want and need when you don’t even know what is offered. That’s why I wanted to share this list for you to get a better idea that having a website done doesn’t mean that you will sign off on the contract and it will be magically ready. You can leave that to opportunity, and there is a chance that someone will actually do what you imagined but more times than not if you don’t give clear guidelines of what you expect, the end result might look entirely different from what you had deep inside your vision. Help your service providers by expressing your ideas clearly and giving them as much information as you can. The project will go much smoother and faster. Also, don’t be afraid to speak your mind. If there are things you don’t like, you have to explain them. I do wish that after spending 13 years together my husband would understand what I need before I tell him, but even he can’t do that, so don’t expect your newly met website designer to understand what your “I don’t know if I like it” means. They really want you to love your website and they will appreciate you telling them what you actually think and feel about it so that you can work it out and produce some real magic together.
Contact me if you need more information or help with your web design projects. I am also open to suggestions if you think there is more information that needs to go on this list.
Hope you get to have your magical website faster.
