Introduction
A website is the first impression that you give to your clients, and more importantly, it’s often the only one they’ll get before they decide to work with you. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that clients love what they see when they visit your site—and that doesn’t happen automatically. It requires a bit of planning and effort on your part.
Ask Questions
As you interview your clients, ask them to walk you through their businesses. Find out what their core values are. Ask them about how they define success and failure in terms of their businesses. You can also ask about the goals they want to achieve with their website, what kind of traffic they’re hoping for and why certain things are important for the website to accomplish.
Ask questions like:
- Why is this project important right now?
- What do you hope to gain from having a website?
- How will your business change if this project succeeds?
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is key to building successful websites for clients. Knowing their needs, wants, and desires will help you create a site that resonates with them.
Knowledge of your clientele will also help you make sure that content is relevant for the business at hand. It’s important not only to know what kind of content they like but also how they like consuming it and how they engage with their favorite brands online.
Create A Wireframe
You can use a wireframe to create a visual outline of your website, including the main content and navigation. They are not the same as mockups, which are more fleshed out and show what the page will look like in its final state. Wireframing is a critical step in the design process because it helps you create an outline for both development and your clients to understand what needs to be created next.
Settle On A Design
You need to settle on a design that is easy to use and navigate, easy to read and understand, easy to find and buy. If a visitor lands on your website, they should be able to figure out what they are looking at within seconds.
If the layout is too complicated or there are too many things going on at once, it can be confusing for even the most tech-savvy person! If you have any doubts about your design, test it out by asking some friends or co-workers who aren’t familiar with building websites what they think of it when they visit it.
Pick The Right Colors And Fonts
When picking colors and fonts, you want to make sure they reflect the brand. A good way to do this is by looking at the colors of their other marketing materials (i.e., their logo). If their logo has blue in it, then use blue somewhere on your site.
You should also use colors that are easy to read and see on mobile devices, because most people will be viewing your site that way.
Lastly, pick colors that work well in all lighting conditions: bright lights like florescent lights can make some websites nearly unreadable when viewed from afar without indoor lighting (or sunglasses).
Get Feedback Early And Often
One of the most important things you can do as a designer is get feedback early and often. Don’t wait until the final design to ask your client what they think, because if there’s any chance that they won’t like it, you’ll have wasted a lot of time on something that will have to be redone.
It’s not personal if your client doesn’t like your idea—it’s just business. They don’t know how much time and thought went into developing your idea, so try not take criticism personally. Instead, use their feedback to improve upon it as much as possible before presenting it again!
Conclusion
If you want to build websites for your clients, then you need to do the work. It’s not enough just to say that they can give feedback at any time—you need to actively seek it out and incorporate it into your design process. This means asking questions early on and getting as much input as possible so that both of you are satisfied with the final product.
