We’ve streamlined the website process into a few steps to make it simpler.
FIRST OFF – WHAT DO YOU LIKE?
We ask you to send us samples of websites you do and do not like and the reasons why. That gives us a good starting point. Also, it’s good to see your current advertising materials to get a feel for the main message you are trying to convey.
NEXT – YOUR KEYWORDS
What words do you want to best optimize for search engines? We have been doing SEO in Vancouver since Immersion began in 2008, and we know from experience that it’s the best advertising you can do for your business. In the first six years or so, it’s how Immersion got every one of its clients, by being number one on Google for Vancouver advertising agency and Vancouver advertising.
Properly optimizing for keywords begins with a best-practice internal optimization. In fact, the words that you pick as you main keywords are so important, they guide the architecture of the entire website.
Don’t know what the best keywords for your business are? Then let’s go on a FISHING EXPEDITION on Adwords to find out. (Click the link to find out more about that.)
Either way, once we have your keywords determined we can start structuring how this thing is going to look.
NEXT, NEXT – SITE SKELETON
Now that we have signed off on the best three keywords for your site, we need to lock down the skeleton. This is basically how the site will be structured. The architecture, if you will.
It usually looks something like this:
HOME
ABOUT
WHAT WE DO
PROJECTS
FAQ
NEWS / BLOG
CONTACT US
That’s a pretty simplified version, but you get what we mean.
NEXT, NEXT, NEXT STEP – COPYWRITING
Once we have the skeleton locked in, we move onto copy. Note, whenever I talk about copy, ever, I’m referring to text. All the words on this page are copy. I started off in advertising as a copywriter. I still am a copywriter. But I do a bunch of other things too. I edit copy too. But I never copy copy, copy? (I couldn’t help myself.)
Either way, copy is the words. In the world of advertising (or website) copywriting, it is making the words interesting, easy to understand and persuasive. Some clients like to give me a list of things that they want to say on each page (or copy points, or bullets) and I take these points and give them some poignancy and panache.
Examples of Copywriting:
I turn features of your product or service into benefits.
FROM
We only offer our services online.
TO
Our services are available to you anywhere, anytime, night or day.
I also edit, simplify and clean up redundancies and make it easy for your clientele to navigate.
Another component of copywriting for the web is SEO copywriting. Again, always cognizant of your keywords, we make sure to pepper in just the right about of keywords, link appropriately, and tag and build around those words to best optimize you on search engines.
Some people think this is just a matter of repeating the same keyword over and over again in the copy because the same keyword multiple time is all you need to do with that same keyword and Google’s search engines will love seeing that same keyword in your text. Don’t do this. This is a bad idea. You’ll get flagged and possibly even banned.
There’s a proper way to pepper keywords.
There’s a proper way to frame content.
There’s a proper way to utilize URLs (ie somekeyword.com).
Domain names (URLs) used to be a gold mine (for instance business.com sold for something outrageous like USD$350 million). While it helps, it’s not the be-all-end all of SEO. There’s a lot more to it.
It starts with internal optimization of your site through Keywords, Architecture, and Copywriting. Which brings us to WEBSITE DESIGN.
Oh yeah, and if clients would rather provide the copy, that’s fine too. (A lot of law firms prefer this for some reason.) We can always optimize and edit client-provided copy without changing the nuance. Sure. I have to say though, most legal copy is as dry as dirt, and if you are a law firm, I strongly recommend taking your hands so firmly off the wheel when it comes to communications copy and let us add some flavour, otherwise you’re just like every other law firm out there with copy that will never get read.
NEXT, NEXT, NEXT, NEXT – WEBSITE DESIGN
Once we have the copy doc signed off, we move onto the look of the site itself. Usually what we’ll do is present you a couple of options for the first couple of pages. You pick the one you want, and we use that as a template to build out the rest of the site.
With site design, just like everything else we do, you get one round of revisions per stage, for free. Just please keep them all in one place.
NEXT, NEXT, NEXT, NEXT, NEXT – PROGRAMMING
Okay, so once you’ve signed off on the look, we move into the mechanics of the thing. At this point our developer goes into his programming cave and makes sure that all the wires behind the scenes are set up properly.
In the old days, we gave clients the option of either a website with HTML or a WordPress backend for content management, our new thinking is that every site needs to have the capacity for the client to run it on their own if they desire. So all sites that we make are fully turn-key, once we are done, you can edit the copy, images, pages, etc. on your own.
CUSTOM WEBSITE VS. OFF-THE-SHELF THEME WEBSITE OR WIX?
In regards to websites we can do CUSTOM sites like this:
Or super simple THEME ones like this:
https://www.mariahruschak.com/
As well as everything in-between.
THEMES
Keep in mind, it’s built around a theme, so we don’t have any flexibility in design or functionality.
It’s basically a ‘what you see is what you get’ option.
CUSTOM
If you want a custom site, it would be built to whatever look and functionality you want, exactly the way you want it.
Custom looks professional because it is professional. As they say, buy cheap, buy twice.
NEXT, NEXT, ETC. – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Now we are ready to show you a Beta Version of the whole website and all we need to do at this stage is test it. We’ll do one last pass over the site on both sides. We’ll check that all the links are working properly, do a final copy-edit. We make sure that the photos are all correct. You, know, quality control before launch. We check mobile versions, iPads, iPods, iTouches, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Internet Explorer 8 (shudder) and all the browsers and devices we can think of to make sure everything is just right for launch day.
FINALLY – THE LAUNCH
Now, we’re ready to deliver our baby to the world. We press a button, hold our breath and shed a little tear as she spreads her wings for the first time and takes flight.
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WORDPRESS CRASH COURSE
It’s one thing having a site that you can have complete control of as a client and another thing to know how to do it! So we offer a one-hour workshop with our developer to teach you everything you need to know about WordPress. In no time, you’ll be adding your own photos and captions and copy and then, you too, will be off to the races.
THE NEXT STEPS
Your website is the storefront of your business.
You want it to be easily accessible (fast load times and ranked well on Google), interesting (well designed) and intuitive to navigate.
We build websites that are best-optimized for search results (SEO). This is only half the battle, the rest we can provide for you with ongoing content. Our social media kits will provide you weekly blogs to post, daily tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram images and whatever else you need to climb to the top of Google and drive traffic to your site.
We build websites with WordPress backends. This allows you turnkey access, so you can change photos or text, and manage the content all on your own. Of course we are always available for technical support if need be.
