HOTWIRE CUSTOM WEBSITES:
A ten step website process guide
1. Ready to create a website? Send an email
or use our contact form to set up an initial phone meeting
Our initial conversation will be an introduction to each other.
At this point, we want to answer your questions and tell you more about
how we work and what is available. If we both feel comfortable with continuing,
we’ll schedule a starting date.
2. Web Planning Strategy and Creative Brief (Go
to Website Strategy Form)
Our online strategy brief is a great tool, consisting of a series
of questions that will assist you in identifying your goals and and
vision for your website. Your answers and information will be foundation
for discussion that helps to determine your overall objectives. The
brief will help define your audience and how they would use your site.
3. Comprehensive Discussion of your Business and Website Objectives
We like to spend a great deal of time listening to you and learning
about your business. We want to understand your business model and set
objectives for your website. The objectives will ultimately guide your
brand development of how your site looks and feels or how it delivers
products or new business lists.
4. Domain Name and Website Hosting, Email, Email Newsletters,
Blogs and Group Calendars
If you have not yet established a Domain Name, we will discuss
different options and strategies for names. Our hosting plans include
email, traffic facts, domain name registration, hosting, blogs and more.
5. Website Content and Copy
There are two types of content, text and images. We can supply
all the stock photos for your site. Or you can give us images. We read
and review your completed content and provide suggestions, guidance
and feedback for enhancing your offering and for search engines strategy.
We can have our copywriter interview key management and create a first
draft.
6. Design and Construction of the Home Page
When the content is complete and navigation finalized, we’ll create
the initial design for you to review and comment on. Based on your comments,
we’ll fine-tune and/or revise the design. Up to 2 comps will be
provided.
Please note: Your website is viewable on Hotwire’s server so that
you can view it on the Internet, click on buttons and navigate around.
7. Website Production
Once the initial design is approved, the development of your site
will proceed with the text formatted and images in place. Once the individual
web pages are completed, the site will be posted on Hotwire’s
server for your review. We can meet again or make changes and updates
while you're on the phone. Or we will take detailed notes and make changes
within 24 hours or less. Our staff will work with you during the design
phase.
8. Search engine optimization and your website reports
If you choose to add search engine optimization Hotwire will have
your site registered with the key search engines. We will format page
titles, keywords, page descriptions, add graphic anchor tags and have
place "google analytics," on every page. We can track users,
what city and country they are located in and what browser they use.
Your site will tell you what to update by the amount of traffic and
where your users go. This feature is unbelievable and simply fantastic.
Add $75 per page
9. Your Site Posted on the Internet
We test your site to work with Internet Explorer 7.0, 6.0, Safari,
Firefox, and Netscape. We test the site to stay in place and to function
properly. We then ask you for an email approval to post the site live.
We like to post sites on Friday afternoon for proper internet indexing.
Usually 8 to 48 hours on average for your site to be up for the first
time. After that, updates can be made in minutes.
10. Maintenance of your Site
Hotwire can make all the updates or you can do it yourself. We
recommend a software program called Macromedia Contribute. This
program will give you full control over simple text edits. Macromedia
offers a free trial of the program so you can test it out and
see if it is for you. Your site is built so anyone can maintain your
site, add pages or change images. All of our sites are open source html.