Build a strong foundation with a website design strategy
Solid gameplans by expert web design strategists
Benefits of a website strategy blueprint
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A website strategy blueprint gives everyone a clear picture of the scope of the project
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It allows you to bounce ideas off your customers before investing in development
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It saves you money by pinpointing issues early on in the design process
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Provides clarity on what your business really needs to meet its website goals
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It makes your website objectives crystal clear, allowing developers to cost accurately
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Saves you both time and money, by preventing costly errors when coding
What’s a website strategy blueprint?
Your website is more than just your company’s face online; it's where you persuade your visitors that your brand is right for them. Before diving into the design and development of your website, we put together a detailed plan that describes the best ways to turn your visitors into customers. We call this a “website strategy blueprint”. The blueprint is all about tailoring your website to your users, and giving them a user experience that they’ll love. Our web design strategists make research-driven decisions to map out everything from your website layout, to how your website will be built. A website design strategy is an effective way to ensure the design and development phases go smoothly.
Why a website strategy blueprint?
We love it when a plan comes together. And to us, there’s nothing better than a plan that makes our clients’ websites succeed. We’re big believers in creating goal-oriented strategies that focus on getting to know your target customers. This ensures that your website not only caters to their needs, but also gives them a delightful user experience. Our web design strategists will guide you through a step-by-step process to help turn your website into your number one salesperson.
Website strategy blueprint phases
Discovery phase
Whether you’re designing a new website or revamping an existing one, it's important to make sure your site aligns with your business goals. The discovery phase is where we start unpacking these goals. We focus on who you are as a company, what makes you different, and what you’re aiming to achieve. We also spend time getting to know your ideal customer. This user-based research gives us an idea of what your customers want, as well as any pain points they may be experiencing. By putting the focus on the customer, we make sure that the website we create is moulded according to their needs.
Once we know a bit more about your customers, we take a look at your competitors. We deep dive into the things they’re doing right, and where they are missing the mark, all the while determining how your company could do better. Every bit of research helps to fuel the website design strategy and gets us one step closer to making you shine online!
Website sitemap
During this step, our web design strategist puts together a hierarchical diagram outlining the different pages of your website. This is called a sitemap. Sitemaps are a useful user experience tool as they help to determine how your site navigation will be structured, as well as how your website pages will relate to one another. It also gives us an idea of the type of content that needs to be created for your website. With the sitemap in hand, a copywriter can start writing content for your pages, while the designers and developers are busy building it.
The structure of a sitemap is determined based on what we learned about your target customers during the discovery phase. Sitemaps give everyone involved a clearer idea of how users will navigate your site, and what content is needed to support their goals.
User flows
Next up, we take your website blueprint one step further. With the sitemap in hand, we determine the typical pathways your visitors will follow to complete certain tasks. We then make sure that those pathways are clear, simple, and easy-to-follow. Sometimes we even sprinkle in a few elements of UX delight along the way! User flows are visual representations describing the paths through which most users will navigate your site. By depicting these paths visually, we are able to evaluate them more easily. This allows us to tweak the user flows until we are confident that they will make your user’s experience enjoyable.
Wireframes
Now that we’ve done the research, figured out your page structure, and drawn out your user flows, we get to work wireframing! Wireframes are two-dimensional, skeletal outlines of each of your website’s pages. They are an essential part of your web design strategy as they outline the navigation, layout, and functionality of each page.
Because a web page could be structured in a multitude of different ways, wireframing helps us to determine the best layout to get the right message across to your visitors. By taking the time to focus on the underlying structure of your website pages, we can make better decisions about the content, information hierarchy, features, and usability of each page. Wireframing can also save you time and money in the long run, as making changes during the wireframing phase is far easier and cheaper than making changes during the development phase.
Design and development estimates
Once we’ve completed your sitemap, user flows, and wireframes, the scope of your project will be clear as day. We’ll know what needs to be done, and how to go about doing it. This allows us to put together an accurate cost estimate and timeline for both the UI design phase (making it beautiful), and the development phase (getting it to work). The estimate will give your team and stakeholders a clear idea of what to expect in the next phase: The design and development of your website.
With a carefully-considered website strategy blueprint, you’ll increase your chances of online success ten-fold. We believe that if you do the groundwork, you’ll reap the rewards!
Set yourself up for success with a website design strategy
Our web design strategists love a good gameplan, especially one that increases your chances of online success! With a solid strategy in place, we can create a website that your users, and your investors love!