How to help your web design team succeed 

You’ve agreed on the price and terms for your web project. Now, your kickoff meeting is approaching. Here are our tips on how to prepare for your project. And how to help your web design team succeed at building the website of your dreams…

Have all your branding materials on hand

Before starting your web design or redesign project, you’ll want to collect all your branding materials. You can save a ton of time at the outset, just by having these items on hand. 

Here are the materials we think are most important to have available:

A style guide or a list of brand fonts and colors

Not every business has an official style guide, but if you do, it is a terrific way to get your web team up-to-speed on your unique brand. 

The first section of most style guides includes elements like brand description, a mission or values statement, a tagline, and target audience. These elements give the team you are working with an understanding of what makes you unique and what kind of customers you’re trying to reach.

Other parts of your style guide include fonts and typography, colors and color palettes, kinds of imagery, and brand voice. Cumulatively, these elements should create a consistent and recognizable experience for your customer. When they interact with your new website, they will be able to understand what kind of brand you are, and not just what you look like or say you’re about.

If you haven’t created a style guide, fear not! You can cover the major points with a bulleted list covering the most important elements, such as company description and preferred fonts and colors. 

Finally, if you are starting from scratch with your branding, and all you have is a logo, let your web design team know. They can help with the process of choosing the fonts and colors that will match or coordinate with your logo. Or, if you already have an existing store, they can match the look and feel of your business location.

A web-friendly logo

Next, and very importantly, you’ll want to have a web-friendly version of your logo. A good logo captures the meaning or concept behind your brand, and is usually displayed prominently on your site.

An ideal format would be one of the following: .svg (scalable vector file), .png (portable network graphic), or .ai (Adobe Illustrator). Having the right format ensures that your logo is not pixelated when viewed online, especially with a high resolution screen. 

If you don’t yet have a logo, you can find basic and affordable logo design services here and here.

Have your content on hand

Do you have good-quality photos, illustrations, or artwork that you want included on your website? How about the written content? Have you already written the text for your web pages? All of this content will need to be delivered to your website design team, unless you are hiring them to create it for you. 

If you have everything organized and ready before your project kicks off, the whole experience will run much more smoothly. Google Drive and Dropbox are great ways to store and share your files.

Collect websites you love

Find a couple of websites you just adore. It’s even better if they include examples of features you’d like to have on your new site. Collect those URLs so you can show your web team exactly what you love. This will help provide guidance as the project moves ahead. 

Be specific in your selections. Do you like the layout of the pages? The generous use of whitespace? The interactive elements? Do you appreciate how easy it is to find important information about the business, right up top, on the front page? Let your design team know! 

Goals for your project

Goals will help you and your team stay on task. We recommend that you create two kinds of goals for your web design project:

Primary goals

Here are some of the primary goals you might have for your web design project:

—Inform prospective customers about your location and contact details

—Convey your expertise within moments of a customer landing on your home page

—Enable customers to make bookings or reservations with ease

—Provide a format for customers to chat with customer service

—Establish an easy, end-to-end checkout process

Achievement goals

Here are some examples of realistic achievement goals you might set for your project. Keep in mind that it may take a little time for these kinds of goals to become a reality. But it’s still  important for you to have a way to measure the success of your project:

—I want to get 10 inquiries per month via my contact form

—I want customers to book 30 table reservations per month

—I want customers to find my business through local search (more on this in a future post on SEO)

—I want to sell 50 units per month

Have fun with the process

Creating and launching a new website for your brand can be a fun adventure. It is also one of the most important steps you can take in building your digital presence and connecting with prospective customers. 

Own the process and enjoy the experience! After all, how often do you get the chance to really explore what makes your business unique? When you do this well, your website will reflect your brand in all the best kinds of ways. And most importantly, customers will remember you for it.

Now you know how to help your web design team succeed

Follow the guidelines above, and you’ll be setting your web design team up for success. When you’ve done your homework, they can do theirs. Your brand new website will be designed, built, and launched before you know it.

LimeTech is a creative tech company with a focus on innovation and adaptive change. We use technical know-how, design skills, and deep experience in entrepreneurship to help companies advance their business goals. Our specialties include mobile app development, website design, technology planning, and remote work solutions.