When building a website, it is not solely down to the website designer to create you a website. You, the client, has to give the website designer some direction in the design but most importantly the content of your website.
When I built websites for clients, the best client to work with is those who know what they want. They have a few ideas of what they would like it to look like, they have colours and branding created and they have their content ready to go. If you can hand this straight to your website designer, you'll get an amazing website back in no time.
So what should you provide?
1. Examples of websites you like
You may not be able to describe exactly what you like in words but by showing examples of websites you like the layout of, or the customer journey, or even the fonts and styles, this really helps your designer know what kind of website you want them to build.
Give 2 or 3 examples and point out what you like and don't like.
2. What is the purpose of your website?
This is so important when building your website. If it is purely to give information, then we can build a simple website. But if you want to add regular content like a blog or sell products or ask for donations or offering an event, this adds extra features to the website that we need to spent time building in.
Have a clear reason why someone needs to come to your website.
3. Your Branding
It is hard to even get started on a website without your branding. This can be a simple as a logo or name and a few colours. The majority of the design of your website will be based on your colour scheme and font style.
Give your designer your logo, 3 colours (dark, light, accent) and a font style (no more than 2).
4. Your Menu Skeleton
When you visit a website, you head to the menu to see what is available on the website. Usually websites have between 3 - 8 headings. 5 is the ideal number. These are the top pages you want people to visit. This might be an 'About' page, 'Services' - what you do, 'Shop' - listing all your products, 'Donate' - how people can give to your cause.
What are the 5 key pages you want people to visit? What are the secondary pages you need? (These can be listed in your header)
5. Your Content
The most important part of your website is your content. There is only so much a designer can do with stock images and text. To show you what your website will actually look like, we need your content. You can display this in a Word or Excel document with the header and your text underneath. If you are visual you may use a storyboard to show where on the page you want each section of information. Give your designer more information that you think. We can always cut down the content to fit the page.
Give your designer all your images, videos and text in one document - make sure it has been checked for grammar and spelling.
If you give all of this to your designer in your first or second session, you will have a beautiful website in no time!
Signing on,
Photo credit: Safrina Smith Photography