Here's the process of how we build sites. Some sites might fall out of this process as necessary, but for the most part these steps help to get your website built and launched on budget and on time. It will give you an idea of what milestones to expect, where the reviews occur and when deliverables are due. Have a look and if you've got any questions drop us a line!
1
Discovery - The Free Consultation
Discovery involves meeting and getting to know your company, and helping you get to know us. Generally this meeting involves a member of our team and a member of your team, hopefully over some coffee in a nice comfortable cafe. For bigger projects more members can be invited.
The reason for discovery is so that both groups know what to expect when working with one another, and what the goals for the website are. Once both groups have an understanding of what the plan is the Codesinger member you met with will write up a proposal document, scope of work and an estimate of time and cost for your project.
If you agree to the proposal and would like Codesinger to continue building your website, a payment of one-third the project's cost is due. Once collected, we'll move right onto the next phase!
2
Resource Gathering
The next step toward creating your website is to gather content. Codesinger will create a content checklist noting all the bits and pieces of info talked about during Discovery and assign delivery dates. Unless otherwise noted in the scope of work, both written and photographic content will be provided by your company in a format noted in the scope.
Things like your company logo, product photos, pertinent contact information, etc. all fall under the title of "Resource" so chances are you've already got a good bit of it available to you. If these aren't available, we'd be happy to create them for you as part of the scope of work.
In addition to text and images, figuring out where your website will be hosted is essential during this phase as it will help our developers determine what technologies will be available to your company. If you don't already have a webhost, we're affiliated with BlueHost and more information regarding their hosting services can be found on our Pricing page.
3
Design
After gathering everything listed in the content checklist, we can get to work designing your website. Initially, Codesinger will design the look and feel of your home page as well as one interior page. After we've prepared it we'll send it over to you for review.
If there are any changes you'd like made, we'd be happy to accommodate. All projects include one round of revisions as part of the scope. Write up anything you need reworked and ship it back over to us. We'll work with you to alter the design to meet your needs and send over a new version of the design.
If some new changes are needed, not a problem. We can add as many design rounds as you'd like to the scope. As a warning though, unless noted in the scope, additional rounds of revision can impact both the cost and timeline of the project, so it's best to consolidate all of your changes as early as possible and to also have a clear idea of the kind of design you think best fits your company.
If the site warrants it, after the home page and interior pages are approved, Codesinger will design any pages that require an alternate layout. These additional pages will also go through one round of review as before.
Once we've both decided on something you can be proud of, the second payment of one-third the project's cost is due and we'll begin building!
4
Build Out
By taking everything already created, our developers will start constructing the files and programming necessary to complete your website. We start by creating a development area where we can build the site privately on our servers. Once this is complete, you'll be given access to the development area in order to ensure that your content was integrated properly and that the scope of the project has been fulfilled.
The build out stage has a review process similar to that of the design phase. Once you've been granted access to the development site, you'll have the opportunity to see how the site functions and notify us of any errors that may have cropped up. Based on your feedback, if the requested changes relate to an error it will be fixed immediately at no additional cost. Please note that Codesinger has already performed an internal review to ensure that the scope has been met and that the site is bug-free, but even we miss things from time to time!
Every now and again, once a client sees their site in a browser they decide that it needs to be developed in a different direction than initially anticipated. If you decide you'd like us to make change to the scope, we'd be happy to generate a Change Order and adjust the timeline and payments as necessary.
If a website is significantly larger than most, there may be additional review phases added into the original scope of work, or, additional phases can be your request for a nominal fee.
5
Launch
Once any bugs have been hammered out and the site functions properly, the balance of the project's cost is due. Once this payment has been collected, Codesinger will transfer and set up your website on its public hosting platform and your site will be all set to start engaging your customers!
6
Post-Launch
All sites come with a 30-day warranty against any problems that arise due to the site transfer, so don't hesitate to give us a call and let us know something's a bit wonky. Also, after that 30-day period we'll invite you out of a cup of coffee and chat about how you felt the process went and what we can tackle together next.
We love seeing projects end, but we hate ending relationships. To us, launching your website is just the beginning of things that can be done for your business, and we want to be there to help in every step thereafter!