What to Expect During the DMD Website Design Process

Your website is your company’s most important digital asset. Today’s tech-savvy consumers expect a lot from their digital interactions with a brand, and as such, these interactions and experiences can play a significant role in value perception and the overall success of your business. 

At Digital Marketing Direction (DMD), we strive to help businesses improve their value and increase revenue with innovative marketing strategies. We take pride in our website design process. We use the latest tools, technologies, and marketing trends to help our clients generate more quality leads and open the door to new growth opportunities. 

We understand that a website redesign can be daunting, especially if you are unfamiliar with the process. We won’t lie and say it’s easy. It takes a lot of work and collaboration between the marketing agency and the client. That said, we believe in transparency and aim to make the process as smooth and painless as possible.

To help you get a better idea of what to expect, we’ve broken our process down into easy-to-understand phases. If you still have questions or concerns after reading, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re here to help. 

The Sales Process

The first step in our web redesign process involves the sales phase where you’ll work with our strategists so we can get a good idea of what you’re looking for and start brainstorming some ideas. 

1. Initially, we’ll have you complete our website and marketing questionnaires.
2. Next, based on your responses in the questionnaires, we’ll review a ballpark quote for our services at Digital Marketing Direction as well as any HubSpot services that are applicable.
3. After reviewing the quote, you will meet with our developer, our designer, and our marketing strategist to discuss ideas and the vision for your site.
4. Once a clear vision has been established, we will review the final proposal with you from our team at Digital Marketing Direction and HubSpot (if applicable). 

Get to Know the Team

• Developer: Aaron Rudd
  Aaron has been working in tech for over 22 years and is passionate about helping clients across industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, music, finance, non-profits, and start-ups. His skills in project management, web-based development tech, graphic design, brand development, and marketing and content strategy lend well to his pursuits as a developer, entrepreneur, and business owner. 

• Designer: Kelly Steckler
  Kelly is a skilled designer with 20 years of experience. She is well-versed in the latest technologies and specializes in digital and web design, illustration, and print work. Kelly brings a warm, creative touch to her designs and above all else, takes pride in delivering a polished final project to her clients. 
  
  
• Project Manager and Marketing Strategist: Cecelia Hodges
  Cecelia is an experienced marketing professional with a multi-faceted career spanning marketing strategy, financial planning, marketing analytics, website merchandising, user experience (UX), content marketing, and social media marketing, and is certified in Growth Driven Design. Her strong work ethic and transparent communication make her a great partner in maximizing digital experiences and delivering a project that exceeds goals and expectations. 

The Redesign Process

The first phase of the Digital Marketing Direction website design process is the discovery phase. This is considered one of the most important parts of the web design process as it helps answer some key questions.

In this phase, we seek to understand why your current website is underperforming and not meeting your needs, as well as research and analysis to determine a new strategy that will ensure your website better appeals to your target audience and helps you reach your goals. 

1. Website Audit

The first step in this phase involves an audit of your existing website. This is a comprehensive evaluation of your current website’s design, content, and performance. We will look at key metrics during this process to help us understand what is working and what needs upgrading, such as number of visitors, time spent on the site, bounce rate, total pages indexed versus total pages that receive traffic, and more. 

2. Keyword Research

Content and search engine optimization (SEO) are critical parts of a well-performing website. If your current content is underperforming, it may be because you are not making use of the right keywords to help boost your search engine rankings. Because of this, part of our process includes SEO keyword research, which will help us determine what words and phrases to use when optimizing your content, which in turn will help your pages rank higher in search results and drive more traffic to your site. 

3. Persona Research and Development

Another critical part of the discovery phase is defining your ideal customer, which helps inform the design process. To create a website that appeals to your target audience, you must first fully understand who that target audience is. This is where personal research and development come into play. 

By creating profiles of your ideal customers, we can create a website experience that better addresses their needs. This can include aesthetic design choices such as style, colors, imagery, and the overall “vibe,” as well as functional elements, such as how the site is structured and what features are available to users. 

4. Competitive Analysis 

The next step is to research your competitors. While obsessing over your competitors isn’t recommended, it is still a good idea to have a general idea of what they are doing for comparison. For example, we can look at things like competing services or products and what your competitors are doing that is working for them.

5. Website Design Research and Analysis

An outdated website design can make your brand appear out of touch and even unprofessional. To mitigate this potential issue, we’ll conduct extensive research to determine what types of websites and features are trending. 

However, we understand that your business is unique and we don’t want to simply copy what others are doing. So part of the research and analysis is to determine how to upgrade your website while still meeting the unique needs of your target audience as well as the unique needs of your business and your goals. 

6. Branding Guidelines 

Branding guidelines are essentially the rules that define your brand image or identity. These can include guidelines on visual elements such as color and theme and written elements such as a mission statement or brand philosophy to ensure you are communicating your brand message consistently across your website and other platforms. 

If you do not currently have a set of brand guidelines, we can help you create them so your design and messaging are consistent and cohesive. However, keep in mind that this is not a rebrand. 

If you don’t like your current brand image or identity and want to change it, that is something we can help you with, but it is part of a separate process and is not included in our website redesign. 

Phase II: Strategy

In phase two, we start taking everything we learned from the discovery phase and using it to start designing your new website. This includes creating new content to better position your website as well as designing mockups so you can get an idea of what the site will look like. 

1. Website Positioning Strategy

As more companies create websites, it becomes increasingly difficult to appear in search results. That’s why we use an inbound marketing strategy to better position your website so you’ll rank higher when someone searches for something related to your brand. 

This involves creating valuable and engaging content, such as landing pages and blogs that are related to the products or services you offer. The key to creating this kind of content is prioritizing your target audience’s needs and building long-term relationships with customers. 

2. Mockups

In this part of the process, we will use everything we’ve learned about your company’s goals and objectives as well as your customers’ needs and preferences to create the ideal website. We will then present you with design mockups and work with you to make any changes based on your feedback. 

Here's just one example of what a manufacturing company's new website mock up could look like:

This is where we start building your new website. 

1. Development of Website in Staging Area

First, we’ll build your website in a staging area rather than launching it live all at once. This is because it’s better to launch a new website in stages to prevent any damage to your existing SEO. Having your website built in a staging area also allows us to keep things organized as we move things over so nothing gets missed or overlooked. 

2. Redirects from Old Pages to New

If your new website has a different page hierarchy or a different URL structure, we’ll need to set up 301 redirects to retain traffic and link value and to make sure users and search engines don’t get directed to pages that no longer exist. This helps prevent page errors like broken links and also helps preserve your search engine rankings. 

3. Production of New Website Content 

The website positioning strategy in the phase above is where we’ll have made a plan for your new content, such as videos, blogs, and social media posts. This last step is where we then put that plan into action by creating and producing that new content. Your website content is not only a key part of positioning your website, but it also plays an important role in the marketing launch to help attract new customers. 

In the final phase, we get your site ready to launch. This means starting with a “soft” launch where we don’t quite promote that the website is live yet. A quiet or soft launch gives us time to review everything once the website is live to make sure it’s performing as expected and there aren’t any errors. 

If everything looks good after the soft launch, then we will officially take the website live by promoting the launch using various marketing channels, including social media, emails, and online ads. 

Your Website, Only Better

Designing and launching a new website is no easy feat, but at Digital Marketing Direction, we aim to make the burden a little lighter. Our data-driven approach has empowered brands across industries to take their business to the next level and we look forward to doing the same for you.

Ready to get started? Get in touch with our team of design experts today! Contact us online or give us a call at 214-267-9344.