3 things about rebranding your site that could save you time, money and stress
Have you considered OR are you considering designing or re-branding your website? But overwhelmed about the process involved? If so, I can absolutely relate. And, I want to share 3 things about the process that may help.
And, if this doesn’t apply to you, don’t worry, because the same 3 things seem to (ironically) apply in other areas of running your business — tips that could save you time, money, and stress.
Note: in my first year of business, I did not invest a lot of money in my site. In fact, I intentionally kept everything simple and clean. And, I must admit that going through the re-design of the website was a big undertaking (you might relate if you’re somewhat like me — a mild perfectionist or someone judicous about what you say and how you look online).
Here’s what I learned:
- Organization is key. This may sound simple, but half the battle is organization. Except when I speak of organization as it relates to websites, I am specifically referring to your content hierarchy, messaging, the actual body copy and imagery/photography. When working with a web designer and developer, it will make his/her life easier (and yours, too) if you have all of your stuff organized. Think in terms of an outline for a speech, presentation, or report — you start by creating broad ‘buckets’ to categorize your information, then subset layers under neath each.
- Be clear on the scope of work. Remember WYSIWYG (What you see is not always what you get)? Well, this isn’t always the case when it comes to web design. You want to make sure that you have a web development company that knows how to ‘test’ your site on different browsers, so it looks and behaves like how you intended it do when you were drafting the original concept for the site. Now, you probably already know this, but what I’m pointing to is that sometimes there can be a disconnect between the vision and the implementation. So, it’s always important to work with someone who knows the technical aspects of bridging the gap between the two.
- Be patient. Things don’t always happen as planned. Originally, we wanted to launch a day earlier, but in the process we discovered some technical issues that needed to be resolved. But, I don’t just intend to speak of little details, I also refer to the overall web development process for your business. Guess what? It WILL change. It has to because your business will continue to change and evolve. And, plus you want to keep it fresh and exciting. Rather than trying to get everything just “perfect,” save yourself some stress and pressure by knowing that you can build your website in Phases. So, don’t worry. Be patient. I recommend 3 to 5 phases (max). For example:
- Phase 1: Initial Launch
- Phase 2: Formal Launch
- Phase 3: Optimization
