Introduction

It might be the case that you have just emerged from a relatively long meeting with your web designers.
You’re tired, as for hours, you have been explaining how you would like your new website to look. You’ve gone into every conceivable detail to explain how you would like the website to look, from how the main menu should look to how you want the footer to look.

You walk away from the meeting, feeling that you have accurately conveyed precisely what you want.

You’ve enjoyed a good chat with them, and if you think they can now go away, design a brilliant website for your business, and it will look a million dollars in, say, a month.

And this should mean you end up with a web design you are obsessed with.
However, suppose the website is not carefully planned, you haven’t had regular meetings with your web designers, wireframes haven’t been created, and design suggestions haven’t been sent to your e-mail.

In that case, the web designers can create a design they think the client will like, but when they see it, there may well be a look of massive disappointment. So, to avoid this, its important to clearly plan how you would like your new website to look.

Have a detailed plan

This is why it’s essential to have a detailed plan, setting out how many pages are needed, you need to work out who will be writing the all the text, and the layout of the pages. Therefore, carefully planning how your website looks removes a lot of ambiguity. For example, by using wireframes you can gain a good idea of the page layout regarding pictures and text.

Food for thought

During a meeting, often scribbling down pieces of paper, how you want the website to look is not going to work. For example, a company director might scribble down an A4 piece of paper as they want the page laid out.

However, it can sometimes be much better for the business to say what aspects of the competitor’s website they like and how they may want a similar design for their own business. Of course, we are not talking about copying a competitors website, no, no no.
Instead what we mean is taking design inspiration.

Therefore, the client might step forward and say I like how the video also loads on the homepage of one competitors site, I want a video showing a walk through of my offices on my website.

I like how the main menu works on this competitor’s website, I like the page layout on this particular competitor’s website. The web developer can then start to gain a good understanding of the design you want built for your company.

This provides a much clearer understanding of what the client wants and how they want the website designed. Therefore, web developers can get straight into designing wireframes for you.

The problem with openly discussing how you would like the website to look in a meeting is that it is ambiguous. What the client wants could be misinterpreted, so the final design may not be satisfactory.

So, we found an excellent way to start or kick-off the web design process to stipulate exactly how you want your website designed. Perhaps a screenshot of certain aspects of a competitor’s website will give your web developers a good idea of how you would like your new website designed.

We are Cardiff web designers who have designed countless websites for Welsh businesses. Because of this, we always ask, which competitors’ websites do you like? What do you like about the web design? What unique aspects do you want added to the design.

Then you get a combination of the functionality you like, such as well-designed main menu, or a footer design you like. Then we can bring to the design the aspects you like, such as nice colour green used across the website, or a nice font, or lets say a nice page layout, showing your friendly staff across the website.

Think about colours you want used when designing your company website.

Perhaps you have seen a shade of colour you like on a particular soft drink can, or within a glossy magazine, or on a competitor’s website. Screenshot a picture of their colour or take a photo on your i-phone and bring it to your web designers so they can match it when designing your website.

Ask for updates

During the web design process, your web designer should be in to send you links to see the part-built website. What’s great about this is that the web design process does not need to be complete; and you can say throughout the design stages which changes you want made.
It’s worth asking web designers for say weekly updates.

Testing

It’s essential before the website is set live that it has a lot of testing to make sure that every aspect works as you would expect.
Therefore, every button must be pressed, internal links clicked, and everything checked to ensure the website works correctly on smartphones and different operating smartphones. The website must therefore work perfectly on desktops and laptops. Therefore, checking the website on various browsers is essential to ensure it works correctly and as expected.

Quality

The final point is that investing in a high-quality website is essential. Don’t go out shopping for a cheap web design company, as the website that you get might be too basic.

When purchasing a website for your business, you don’t want to aim to save money on it. A well-designed website is often crucial to the company’s success, so it’s worth paying more for quality.

That’s why so many Welsh companies come to W&P to get a website designed because we design quality websites here in Wales.
Sure, some companies offer cheap website prices, but they might well be too basic and built in an absolute rush: the website may have little text, a bad design, and looks terrible. This can mean that you often need to repurchase and have a website redesigned in a short period of time. So why pay to have a website designed, and then have to have redesigned because it looks, well, a bit rubbish.

Therefore, if you would like quality website designed, and often we can build most websites in less than 4 weeks, then do talk to our Cardiff web designers today.