Regardless of whether you go to a large firm or hire a freelancer, there will be some level of collaboration when getting your website created. If you are considering hiring someone to design your website, there are a few things you can do ahead of time to make the process much easier for both of you!
Identify your goals and priorities.
Your business goals should inform your marketing. So, write them down and make them specific. From there, you can determine how you want to use your website to meet those goals. What’s the number one thing you want people to do when they visit your website? Are you looking to make sales directly on your website, or do you want to capture leads?
Have a vision.
The clearer you are about what you want your website to look and feel like, the higher the chances you’ll be satisfied with the final product. Designers may seem like magicians, but they aren’t mind-readers. They can help you work through ideas you may have – but you have to have ideas!
If you really don’t know where to start, I suggest creating a vision board on Pinterest. Search for websites similar to yours. What aspects do you like about the examples you find? What aspects do you not like?
The bottom line: Don’t come as a blank slate.
Have your content ready.
You should have a pretty good idea of what information you want to include on your website. You may even have that information broken out into specific pages, which is great. What would be even better is already having the actual copy to go on those pages.
You can hire a copywriter to write the words that visitors would ultimately see on your website, but even a copywriter is going to need some information from you to start that process. Again, you need to have a place to start!
FREEBIE: What Should My Site Say? — Worksheet
Write out your list of services and descriptions. If you know you’ll need to collect bios and headshots from team members, go ahead and do that now. If you already have a library of images from company events, client work, etc. go ahead and start collecting the content that could make it to the website in a folder.
You won’t be turned away or penalized for not having this information before you start working with a designer. But it will make the process much easier!
