How It Works

Many people think that the first step in designing a website is the design part. And they’re just plain wrong. The first step in any design project should be about discovering the message – what is the finished product supposed to say?

When you work with beyond the office, the first thing we’ll discuss is what your website needs – who is it talking to, what does it need to tell them, and what do you want them to do after they’ve read your message?

Next, we’ll talk about how that’s going to happen. Will you be telling your story with just words? (I don’t recommend this.) will you be incorporating stock graphics, product pictures, work samples? How about audio and video?

Then we’ll talk about your visitors. Are they all the same? Do you need to have a different message for different visitors? Is there some content that will only be available to certain visitors?

After that we’ve got all that straight, we can talk about design. This is where you can tell me what your vision for the website looks like. Examples of design elements that you want to incorporate are good, as well as things that you’d like to avoid.

The next step is a rough concept draft, so you can see what my vision is for your website, based on what you’ve told me about who it needs to talk to, what it needs to tell them, and what you think you might like to see in  the site. Once you sign off on this, we build your custom website.

If you want, you can give me the content, to load, or you can do it yourself. Either way, every website I design comes with a free WordPress training session to help you feel comfortable maintaining your own website.

The comes the revision round, where you review the site and let me know what, if anything needs tweaked. This is easier if there’s some content on the site, so we can check for things like fonts, spacing, and working links, but it can also be done with temporary content if it’s not ready at this point.

We’re almost there. Next is the final review. After any revisions that you requested are made, you’ll take another look at the site to make sure it’s perfect.

And then – Launch and training! When we’re getting ready to launch a site, we have a comprehensive checklist that we put every site through before it’s deemed ready to go live.

As I mentioned before, every website I design comes with a free WordPress training session to help you feel comfortable maintaining your own website. After that, you should feel confident in updating your website yourself. However, if you still need some assistance, don’t, worry – we also offer WordPress maintenance packages and training.