The Five stages of working with Altitude Design
Website design process: what to expect when working with us.
Thank you for visiting our website and considering working with Altitude Design. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity, be sure to take a look at our portfolio of website design projects to give you a better idea of how we can elevate your business.
Want to know how working with a creative agency like us works in practice before taking the plunge? Let’s get into it.
Stage one - getting to know you
The relationship with your website designer is vital. Whether you’re commissioning a new website as part of your digital marketing strategy, or rebranding entirely, your website is one of the few, if not the only, opportunities you have to entice your target audience - and some research suggests it takes as little as 0.05 seconds for your site to make an impression, good or bad.
That’s why ensuring you have chosen a developer with a track record of successful projects and satisfied clients is a must. For example, Altitude Design has a reputation for delivering best-in-class websites for some of the world’s biggest hotel brands, and our results speak for themselves.
At that first exploration call, we will discuss your expectations, and what level of support you are seeking for your project - such as, whether you require branding development as part of the project, and integration of services like eCommerce or CRM.
Once we have an understanding of the scope of the project, we can discuss a roll-out timetable.
One of the most common questions we get asked at the start of a project is “how long will the process take?” It’s a fair question, but the answer is always that it depends on myriad factors - including the scope of the project and whether content development or branding is required or provided by the client.
To ease your mind, Altitude Design has experience in delivering projects from exploration call to launch in as little as 17 days. While we recommend a longer lead time, anything is possible with a collaborative approach and open dialogue.
Stage two - discovery and design
Once we are aligned on the scope of the project, services required, and time frame, our team of web designers sets about the research and creative ideation for your brand-new website.
We have a clear approach - to leave the technical jargon behind and take a deep dive into the goals and objectives set out by you during our exploration meeting.
We won’t bombard you with confusing discussions around servers, coding or development lingo that means nothing to you - focusing instead on designing a striking new mobile-first design, with user experience at its heart.
A combination of competitor research, keyword analysis, and user profiling occurs at this stage, too, ensuring that we present you with a proposed sitemap and thematic designs with your target market front-and-centre in our thinking.
We’ll share options, discuss content approach, and tweak our proposals to match your feedback before beginning to implement the architecture for your new website.
Don’t worry, we pride ourselves on our adaptability, so changes can be made at any time in the process.
Stage three - building something beautiful
Once agreed on the creative approach, we set about building the systems and infrastructure to house your website, keeping you up to date on milestones throughout and sharing pages as and when they become available.
Altitude Design websites prioritise ease of use for both the user and the client in the content management system (CMS), so this is where we take care of all of the heavy lifting ahead of launch. On top of all of the design considerations and overall sitemap, this stage includes:
Search engine optimisation (SEO, to ensure that your content performs effectively as possible to rank highly on organic search.)
Integration of analytics so that you can effectively track visitor journeys
Redirect mapping, ensuring that links from your ‘old’ website are effectively transferred over to new homes
Integration of services (for example, eCommerce)
Optimisation of imagery
Implementation of CMS
Once the sitemap and landing pages are in place, we will also ensure that content is rolled out at this stage. In some cases, Altitude Design delivers the content and copywriting services for clients’ sites, and, in others, clients choose to provide their own. Whatever the decision taken, we ensure that our responsive websites provide the perfect platform to make your copy and content pop.
To learn more about the suite of creative agency support available through Altitude Design, click here.
Stage four - Testing, training, and going live
When the website has been built and all elements are operational, we undertake rigorous testing to be certain that your brand-new website launches without a hitch.
We check every last detail, hyperlink, and content block on your website to ensure that it is fully operational ahead of pushing it live - including checks on multiple browsers, operating systems, and pieces of hardware - both in the public-facing pages and website CMS.
Ahead of launch, we will run you through training on how to operate your website, including a walk-through of the CMS, make changes to the content, and access key analytics tools.
Once the final round of pre-launch testing is finished, training has been scheduled with key users of the website, and any final pieces of feedback have been incorporated, we go live.
Stage five - aftercare
Altitude Design meticulously monitors all of the KPIs and performance of your website in the hours and days following launch - this includes another round of testing and checks for peace of mind that all elements, integrations, and content pieces are still working as intended after launch.
As the website takes on a life of its own and you begin to upload your own content and refresh it regularly, we find that the overwhelming majority of our clients are able to transition into managing the site themselves with relative ease - even those without any technical or digital expertise. In fact, it’s one of the key pillars of our development process.
That being said, we remain on hand to support clients with any technical issues, design requests, or queries. Depending on the level of support required, this can be on an ad-hoc or ongoing basis.
Have any further questions about the design process, or want to book an exploration call to learn more about how we can drive better results for your business or brand? Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!
