Congratulations! You’ve officially made the decision to invest in yourself and your business. You’re ready to take things to the next level and that means hiring the perfect web designer to bring your website dreams to life.
Maybe your initial consultation call went amazing, and all you can think about is how excited you are to get this thing launched and ready to go. And then she hit you with your deliverables and you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with everything you need to prepare to work with her.
Maybe you haven’t had your consultation call yet, but you’ve picked the dreamiest designer and you’re hopping on a call super soon.
Whatever stage you are in post-decision to hire a web designer, there’s one thing that’s certain, there are going to be things that you need to have ready to work on your project in order to launch your website. While yes, your designer will do the building and design of your website, she can’t do it without fully understanding you, your business and the content that you want on your site.
Here’s a breakdown into two umbrella categories of what you should prepare to work with your web designer:
Umbrella 1: Branding Development
A lot of web designers include branding within their web design package offers because it makes sense as a 2-in-1 for workflow and design consistency purposes, but this can’t be done without your help. Having an understanding of the branding story you want to tell is crucial to developing a brand (and website) that calls to the audience you’re trying to attract.
To best prepare for the branding questions, I recommend having an idea of:
Your logo: what you want your logo to look like, or references for what you like and dislike
Branding colors: what colors you like/dislike, or if you have a specific color palette already developed that you love - even better!
A mood board: there’s a good chance your web designer will create one for you depending on if you opt for branding in addition to your web design service. But if you don’t, a mood board allows your designer to understand what kind of tone you want your website to set so she can design that . [Check out my Pinterest board HERE for some mood board inspiration!]
A branding board: Similarly to the mood board, your designer may create one for you to display what they’ve designed for you if you decide on a branding service, but if you want to create one yourself, branding boards typically displays the graphic elements you want in your brand design to include:
Main Logo
Alternative Logo
Favicon (the small icon that goes in the corner of your web page tab
Color Palette
1-3 Fonts (Think Large Header, Secondary Header, Body Text)
Graphic Elements (such as photos of a specific flora/fauna you want/love that goes with your theme), or textures you want to include
[Check out my Pinterest board HERE for some branding board inspiration!]
Sample Mood Board
Sample Branding Board
Reference websites: I highly recommend doing some website research to see what you like and dislike in a website layout and design. A list of 3-5 sites listing elements/functions that you like and dislike will give your designer a better idea of what you’re looking for in a website, thus making it easier for them to create your dream site. [Check out my Pinterest board of Squarespace website layouts and designs HERE if you need some inspiration!]
Umbrella 2: Website Content
Copy: This is the text that you want on your website - from your bio, to text on your home page, to call-to-actions (also known as CTA’s). If you’re finding that you have a hard time writing, you can also hire a copywriter to do the work for you!
List of Services/Products + Descriptions + Pricing: This item is similar to copy but I’ve found that sometimes this very important list is often forgotten about. If you are selling services or products - particularly products in this case - it’s important to list product names, descriptions, pricing, and how much you have in stock (whether it’s a limited number or unlimited), so they can display correct product information on your site, and ensure you don’t oversell anything you might have a limited stock of!
Photos: All pictures that you want on your website! I would also recommend making a note if you want certain photos at specific locations of your web pages as well.
Links: If your website is going to link anywhere within or out, noting where all CTA’s go, and any links to external pages will be important to include in your folder of items for your web designer and make their job easier!
Social Media Connections + Logins: Pretty simple - if you want any of your social media accounts connected to your website, you’ll need to provide the login information for them to your web designer. You don’t have to do this if you prefer to do it yourself, but if you are having a web designer do it, you may need to be involved for few minutes as a lot of social media sites now have two-factor authentication where they send you an email/text verifying that it is you connecting your account to your website.
So that’s it! Hopefully any anxiety about knowing what you need to prepare for your web designer is gone and you can get to compiling all the content to bring your website to life!
