Our Website Development Process

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Project Goals

Step 1

Custom website development projects are time-consuming and often costly, so citing “outdated design” is not reason enough to embark on such a project.

Before you embark on your website development process, define and document the specific goals you wish to achieve with the new website.

We recommend getting a written sign-off on these goals from all key stakeholders, highlighting that any future change to the goals may affect the project scope, timeline and budget.

The typical website goals we see include (and yours can include more than one):

  • Launch or rebrand, including product education and interest-building
  • Facilitate web administration via a user-friendly backend and an optimized content management process
  • Increase lead generation, on-site sales, and/or other types of conversions
  • Increase stickiness and loyalty, including return visits and repeat sales

Website Planning

Step 2

Overview of the key points a professional web design agency considers and documents when planning your website project.

  • Functionality & Marketing Requirements: Thinking about your project goals, identify the key functional requirements that are in direct or indirect service of those goals. These requirements can be as mundane as newsletter subscriptions and social media integrations, and as complex as user logins, eCommerce features, and similar.
  • Integration Requirements: Audit your current integrations to list the ones that should be migrated to the new website, which should be reassessed and which should be added to support your required functionality and goals.
  • Content Management System (CMS) requirements: How much flexibility do you need in creating new landing pages and managing the existing website content? Define the CMS features that will make your website admin experience more intuitive and streamlined.
  • Technology Requirements: Are you married to any technology (stacks) or are you open to tailored tech recommendations? Define the tech environment your new website should function in.
  • SEO Opportunities: What are the keywords your target audiences Google when looking for products, solutions and vendors in your space? These keywords will directly affect your sitemap and landing page messaging to position your website for future SEO campaigns.
  • Sitemap & User Journeys: This is where all the previous steps begin to translate into more tangible website planning; your sitemap will define your website navigation, key landing pages and how they relate to one another, forming a seamless user journey.
  • Conversion Funnels & Messaging: Messaging – or content architecture as some call it – is key to building effective website conversion funnels. This step involves outlining the content for each landing page, defining the information flow and content requirements, and providing a blueprint for design.
  • KPIs: How will you measure the success of your new website? Depending on your specific goals, list the technical, user behavior and marketing KPIs – think loading speeds, conversion rates and organic traffic, to name a few.

Your sitemap defines your website navigation, landing pages and how they will be connected

Design

Step 3

Notice that we are already two steps into your website development process and we haven’t even mentioned design or development. Design and development should be in service of your project goals and website content, not the other way around.Speaking of design, the first decision to make is whether the design process should be mobile-first or regular responsive.

Then we proceed to create your unique:

  • Wireframes: Grayscale visual interpretations of your landing page content structure, without images, branded elements or other distractions
  • User Interface (UI) design: A finalized, static mockup of your future website built upon the approved wireframe designs and consistent with your brand’s visual identity
  • Prototypes (optional): Animated versions of your approved UI design that show how the live website would behave

A wireframe is a visual representation of your landing page content structure

Content Creation

Step 4

Here’s what we typically focus on in parallel with the next (5th) step of our website development process:

  • SEO copywriting: Guided by keyword research, content outlines and approved designs, we create high-quality landing page copy that is true to your brand voice and business offering.
  • Long-form content: From SEO blogs to gated whitepapers, eBooks and even quizzes, we create well-researched and thoroughly quality assured content for your Resources section.
  • Custom Visuals: Based on your approved landing page designs, our marketing and video design teams can create highly engaging visual content to enrich your website’s user experience.

Questions about our custom web design? Speak with our experts!

Development

Step 5

After strategic and meticulous planning, we reach the development phase of your website development process.This phase begins with a tech specification document, where our teams of true engineers define the technologies, functionalities, integrations and other technical considerations that will guide our backend and frontend development.

  • Backend Development: Our teams of backend developers code your website, following our high-quality standards and established processes, and using carefully selected technologies. Though largely invisible to the end-user and admins even, backend development is key to high-performance and scalable websites, technical SEO, security and user experience.
  • Frontend Development: Our frontend developers turn your approved designs into a live, interactive digital experience using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

When ready for review, you will be able to experience your website in a restricted staging website environment during the quality assurance process and before launch.

Quality Assurance

Step 6

Professional agencies count on teams of quality assurance (QA) engineers to thoroughly test websites to ensure they are ready for launch, and run final rounds of testing once the website is live.

The QA process typically encompasses all elements of the website experience, from speed testing to responsiveness and other design elements, functionality and integrations, and security, among others.

Launch & Maintenance

Step 7

The launch process is pretty simple: Following meticulous QA testing and official approvals, developers push the website live, making it accessible to online audiences.

At Perfectech, the launch process also includes CMS training – a recorded walkthrough of the website’s admin panel to prepare your key stakeholders for future content editing and updates.

Businesses typically continue their agency partnerships on website maintenance retainers, which provide peace of mind as they delegate security monitoring and backups, and even other technical maintenance tasks such as speed optimization, integrations, bug fixes and more.