Starting a new website can be overwhelming, especially if you’re not sure how to begin. Here at Studio O’Riley, I make getting started easier with a standard process for every project. Read more below to see how you can prepare for a brand new project with Studio O’Riley.
Let’s take a look at some of hypothetical projects and talk about setting yourself up for success.
Your website is very much unique to you. You’ll need to let me in on your plans and your dreams for your website. It’s always helpful to put some thought into your site before beginning the project. Here are some things you can think about and write down to make our project briefing go smoother:
- What is the purpose of your website? What’s it for?
- How is your website different from similar websites?
- What functionality does your site need to have?
- Will you be including an online store?
- What kinds of media will regularly go on your site? Blog? Podcast? Videos?
- Do you need users to be able to sign in and create an account?
- What functionality should be available to users?
If you can answer these questions, we’ll start off a lot closer to the finish line than if you haven’t thought about it yet. Also consider your brand and the kinds of circumstances that are likely to lead to a visitor finding your website?
New Website
If you need a completely new website, we have a lot of freedom and can take the project in any direction. If you haven’t already, think about the domain name of your site, whether it should be a .com, a .org, a .io, or some other domain. Each is used to denote something about the sites they’re attached to. Consider the timeline, although we will have to discuss the time it will take to actually build your site from scratch. Lastly, determine if there are any unique functionalities you’d like Studio O’Riley to include in your site.
Site Overhaul
To overhaul a site requires that we jump through a lot more hoops in order to preserve your already working site.
I will take backups of your site as it is. If your site is working and the overhaul is purely cosmetic, I’ll leave your site operational while I make adjustments to a new version of your site. Once I’ve made all the necessary changes, I’ll connect the new site to your preferred domain and take down the old site.
If your domain is changing as well as your site, you have the option of taking an extra step and forwarding the old domain to your new domain. Studio O’Riley recommends this because this way, people who don’t know about the domain change will still end up at the correct site.
In order to prepare for a site overhaul, make a list of the things that are wrong with your current site that you would like to address in the new one. We will discuss any other points during our project briefing.
New Page or Content
Adding a page to your website is simple. As long as your site is working and there are no problems connecting the new page to your current theme, I simply write the page and add it! Simple as that! All you need to have prepared is a description of the page you’d like Studio O’Riley to create for you and a list of any specific requests for content or functionality.