Similarly to the well-known phrase regarding Rome, websites don’t appear overnight. There is a lot of work that needs to go into a website, especially if you are looking for a completely bespoke site. It is very much a collaborative effort, and an investment of time as well as money.
We’ve put together an infographic that should answer all your questions about website builds, including:
- How long does it take to design a website?
- How long does it take to build the website? (They’re two different things)
- Why does it take that long?
- How much time do I need to invest?
- How much do I need to contribute to the overall process?
- What do Fifteen contribute to the overall process?
As always, the below is a rough guide. If you need a more tailored solution, please contact our team today.
Stages
Before the website build can begin, there are many things that must be done. After receiving your initial brief and site outline, we begin our initial research. We will research your industry, current web trends, and suitable functions to include in the site build. This research is then presented in our initial meeting. Together we can discuss your brief, and our initial research, deciding on what suits your needs most effectively.
After the initial meeting, we will work on putting together an official proposal, allowing you to see exactly what your new website will include, and the estimated time frames.
Then it’s back to the research for us, whilst you get a little break. We will look into the structure of your site, any analytical data that is available, and build on any comments that were made during our initial meeting and the proposal stage.
Then we meet again. Think of this as a second proposal, with Fifteen presenting everything we’ve researched and taking your comments on ways to better to tailor our research to your specific needs.
Overall, this first stage will take up to one month. This might seem like a long time, but it is important to ensure that there is a secure plan in place. This allows the next steps to go ahead much more quickly, as we are working towards a much clearer goal.
Once we’ve managed to secure a plan for your website, it’s time to start designing. Our in-house web design team will work on creating the initial designs, based on the structure decided on in the previous stage, which we will then present to you. As before, this is a collaborative effort, so we encourage feedback at this stage. We will do everything we can to ensure your website portrays your business accurately and professionally. We can then make amends to the designs in light of our meeting, and present them again for approval.
Once the initial designs have been approved, our team will work on the responsive designs. Responsive design allows the designs to be compatible with all devices. For example, a user viewing your site on a mobile device will see a slightly different layout to a user viewing your site on a desktop computer.
Once these responsive designs have been signed off, it’s onwards to the actual build of the site.
Overall, this stage will typically take up to three weeks.
Now that we have a design for your site, we can start building. Our web developers will work on turning the approved designs into a working website, integrating any functions required, such as e-commerce or log-in portals. All of our builds include Responsive Design, and this is integrated from the beginning. Whilst this is happening, we ask that you start preparing the content for your site, whether you are preparing it yourself or outsourcing it to a copywriter.
We will then send over a link to your site, and request your feedback. This will allow our developers to complete the final stages of the development, including building any news feeds or blogs to be included as part of the final site.
Once the build and development have been finalised, we can start inputting the content that you’ve prepared, and the site is ready to go live.
This stage typically takes up to three weeks.
Now it’s time for the exciting part; getting your site ready to go live!
Our Digital Marketing experts will ensure that all the pages are SEO-ready for your new website launch, and that the user experience is suitably optimised. The development team will test your site’s responsive design on a wide variety of devices and browsers.
We’ll organise a training session for you, so you can get to grips with your new content management system, and then we’ll hold a final review of the site.
After the final review, there’s still time for a few refinements before your site finally goes live.
This stage typically takes two-three weeks.
Once your site is live, there’s still more to do. As well as continued support for your site, Fifteen will organise a performance review six weeks after your site goes live. This gives you an idea of how your new site is performing, and what you can do to improve your results, including digital marketing strategies.
If you’re looking for a new website, please don’t hesitate to contact our friendly, helpful team of experts today. We’d be happy to discuss your needs and how we can tailor a solution for you.