Website Design
The Online Face of Your Company
Your website will often be the very first thing that a potential customer sees about your business. Within seconds, visitors will have decided whether they like your company and want to explore further, or click the back button to go spend money with your competitor. In an age when everything is just a Google search away, first impressions have never been more important.
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The Clean Slate or the Redesign
If you’re here reading this page, you’re probably considering the fact that your website is a bit outdated. Maybe the message of your website is still perfectly accurate, but the design is outdated and tired. If this is the case, all you really need is a redesign, which is usually a great deal less than starting from scratch. If on the other hand, you’re now a paper company that sells printers, you may need a whole new website. Either way, after you say you like our quote, there is a 5 step process we use to get it done for you.
To the left you can see a few comps we’ve done over the years. When we say you’ll get a comp, we don’t mean a bunch of scribbles on a napkin.
What type of website does your company need?
The 5 Steps to a Coldfire Produced Website
- Information Collection
Many of our business customers have no idea how to go about providing content for their website. They often don’t know what’s available or appropriate as trends and tools change so quickly. If this sounds like you, that’s okay because our first job is to listen and ask the right questions; about you, your market, your competitors, your goals and even your design preferences. We will go over similar or competitive businesses together so we all can understand what they are doing right… or wrong. By the end of this process, we will have developed a site map, which will include all the pages on your website-to-be. If you’re in need of a shopping cart, we will also present our recommendations for an appropriate solution at this point in time. - Design Ideas
Once we have a good idea of what you need, we’ll show you a few design ideas about website layout and page navigation. We will listen to your concerns, your input and your ideas. If we disagree, we will tell you why, but this is your business and you always have the final call. Colors and graphics can be tweaked quite easily and we will continue to make revisions on our ideas until you give us the thumbs up. See the slideshow above for a few examples of design comps we’ve done. - Technical Development
After we agree on what is best for your website in terms of layout and navigation, we can begin actual development. If you’re getting a CMS or a shopping cart, we’ll install the latest version of that software and make sure everything works with your hosting service. We build all of our sites using standard styling methods, which means that other web contributors will be able to work within our project. - The Testing Phase
Once we think we’re close to being finished, we’ll put your site up on the internet, in a hidden place, so that you and your employees can explore, find errors, make minor design changes, etc. This is a testing and proofing phase which can take a few hours or a few days. It’s very important to understand what the initial impression will be upon visitors as they arrive on your website for the first time. We want them to stay and tell their friends. - Launch
When everyone is happy, and we all have proofed for errors, omissions and navigation, we will release your site to the world. We will transition from your old site to your new site seamlessly and unobtrusively. If you are switching hosting services, we will coordinate with them so that your email and any other services remain uninterrupted. We’ll monitor the launch and make sure everything continues to work smoothly.
That’s it! It’s as simple as that to launch your new website.
Maintenance
We also offer maintenance services to our customers on monthly or project based fees.
