Update Your Website: A Quick and Easy Guide

First things first. Before you dive into the work of updating your website with your brand strategy, get comfortable with the process and your role in it.

Summary: You’re ready to bring your brand strategy to life on your website. Here’s everything you need to know about the process of refreshing your online presentation with your brand strategy.

It’s a 5-step process.

This big work of updating your website becomes manageable when you break it down into 5 straightforward steps:

1. Prepare

   The planning phase. To begin, you’ll create a project plan, interview and hire expert resources, and chart the work on the calendar.

2. Outline

   Next, you’ll create a “wireframe,” or a set of instructions for designers. This outline will include all of the materials experts need to design the website—including a brand style guide, a photo library, and all the written content for the site.

3. Create

   Empowered with instructions, designers begin their work! Using a process called “design in development,” you’ll work collaboratively with the designers you’ve hired to bring the outline to life on the website.

4. Audit

   When the design is nearly complete, it will be all hands on deck to click every link, read every word, and test out the entire website to be sure that information and functionality are 100% accurate. Final edits are made and then…

5. Launch

   Your website goes live! Visitors to your .com see and experience all your hard work.

You play a vital role in this 5-Step process.

You are the architect of your website.

You wouldn’t ask a contractor to build a house without a set of architectural plans. The same is true for a website.

Believe it or not, most of the work of building a website happens before a web designer or developer even enters the picture! As the architect of your website, you’re responsible for the building plan.

Just like a contractor, website designers and developers will use the building plan to bring your vision to life. A complete plan includes three elements:

1. A brand style guide

2. A photo library

3. All the written content for the site laid out in an organized way

There are plenty of benefits to creating an architectural plan before design work begins:

• The problem solving is simplified. Instead of trying to solve copywriting, photos, page layout, graphics and functionality all at one time, these design decisions are broken down into different phases: Outline and Create.

• Armed with the complete picture, designers are more effective. Expect fewer revisions, less back and forth, shorter turn around and greater creativity.

• Experts get to be experts. You’re hiring experts to design and develop your website. When you’re organized they can focus on what they do best: design.

Your website’s architectural plans are called a wireframe.

The architectural plan for a website is called a wireframe.

A wireframe is an outline of a webpage, a lot like a blueprint is an outline of a building. This document shows the organization of the information for every webpage in the website.

A wireframe includes:

• Titles, subtitles and written copy

• Photos (or a description of the desired image)

• Calls to action, buttons and links

• Descriptions of desired functionality

It’s a simple, but powerful tool.

A wireframe shows the placement of content, navigation elements, and functionality without including any visual design details like colors or graphics. This document tells designers everything they need to include in the design.

And here’s the truth: The quality of your website will be equal to the quality of the wireframe you provide to your designers. (See, I told you that you had a vital role to play!)

A method called “design in development” turns your wireframe into a fully functional website.

We’ll use a design method called “design in development”, which means that all design work is performed in a staging environment—not on paper or in a static graphic layout.

You’ll be able to click, scroll and interact with your website like any visitor to the page, but the bonus is: staging is completely private.

Staging is where you’ll see your wireframe transformed into a webpage design. Instead of working on the live website where visitors can see the changes in real time, the website is designed in a hidden location where updates, changes and testing can happen in a safe environment.

It’s a collaborative space where the entire team can review progress and share feedback with the development team before going live.

By now you’re thinking, with all this organization this will be a breeze...

Yes… and, no.

Even with a 5-Step Process, a strong understanding of the tools, and an organized architecture, this process can be challenging for teams.

Here are the four places teams most commonly get stuck:

1. Communication. It is your responsibility to prepare, organize and deliver a complete, thoughtful wireframe. Without it, a designer can’t do their job. Remember, the quality of your website is directly equal to the quality of your wireframe.

2. Decision Making. You must be decisive. In many ways, the process of designing anything is simply the process of decision making. Is this the right headline? Does this button lead me where I expect? Do I like this layout or that one? Yes. No. That’s it. If you don’t make choices, the process will grind to a halt. Get ready to be decisive. (Hint: Trust your gut …and your designer.)

3. Deadlines. If the weekly goals are not met the project will take longer, cost more, and (let’s be honest) be less a lot less fun. A 20-page website can be designed in three months… or a year.

4. Fear. The beauty of a website is that it’s impermanent. It’s an ever evolving, living representation of who you are becoming as a brand. You can change it tomorrow for relatively little cost and effort. So go ahead, try something new.

Now you know the 5-Step process, your role as the architect, and the method you’ll use to get the job done. Ready to dive in? Good, because we’ve got work to do!