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[00:00:00]  Saul: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Web Design Brisbane has been podcast This is episode number 15. And today's episode is entitled Professional Website Design Brisbane. My name is Saul Edmonds and as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith.

[00:00:12]  Gillian: Good morning, Saul.  It's a bit chilly today. 

[00:00:15]  Saul: Yes, it is. It's certainly very chilly. However, we are the co-founders and creative directors of Roundhouse, the warm creative agency, a local business with a passion for helping our clients grow. Over you, Joe. Okay, well

[00:00:28]  Gillian: Today, our topic is Professional Website Design, we will talk about what you can expect when working with a professional website design company. Our goal is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs who live in Brisbane make the most of their online presence. So today we'll talk about the benefits of professional website design. Plus, provide a guide to the professional website design process. Plus give an overview of the software professional web designers generally use and will also give you some tips on how to find a website designer. If you live in Brisbane, Australia. 

[00:01:01]  Saul: Okay, let's get started.

[00:01:02] Gillian: Okay, Sail.  Well, first, first off, what are the benefits of a professionally designed website in a nutshell? 

[00:01:10]  Saul: In a nutshell, okay for initial points, your website is viewed and should always be viewed as an extension of your brand. It should be crafted with your goals in mind. And rank better in searches or rank well in searches depending on if it's a new site of its existing site.

[00:01:33]  Gillian: So that should be built into the ground in a layout of your website concept? 

[00:01:37]  Saul: Yeah, at least the and the foundations for that ranking better. Let's just be like a little bit clear on that or ranking in the first place doesn't just come from having a website up the ranking doesn't happen just because you put a website. it might overtime but it needs strategy and needs to have a targeted approach to keywords and key terms that we'll talk about in another podcast in more in depth, and then also having expertise at your fingertips so expertise at your fingertips would really mean also that if you're getting a professionally designed website, it's a long term investment for your business so then having expertise, having some having an agency, people there to help you as that grows, is, in my mind, really important because it's a it's a long term goal, you can do things yourself, but having other people to assist in that process, even if it's strategically is a really big advantage for a professionally designed site.

[00:02:59]  Gillian: Okay, well, let's go to talk about the web design process. Now what can you expect when working with professional web designer here? 

[00:03:07]  Saul: Okay, so let's just look at our goals. So,  the goal is to create a custom, tailored website, it's more than that. Yeah. So it's, it's then also to build to generate leads, and grow your business. So we've talked about this a number of times, in the past, it's your brand online. So we should probably the other version of this podcast should be called a professionally designed brand online, because that's what it is, like, it's always your website. In fact, it may be for many people to experience your business, it may be the first impression they have of your business. So therefore, is crucial.

[00:03:55]  Gillian: And you have less than three seconds before people hit the back button. 

[00:03:59]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. If they decide to go back or to look at other things, I mean, some people, you could perhaps also argue the point that some of those people who do that are going to be your clients anyway. So that's probably good. The quicker they go, the better. But at the same time,  

[00:04:18]  Gillian:  Side effect (now) that concept, isn't it? 

[00:04:20]  Saul: Yeah,  the flip side, and you never really going to know. But what you do know. And what you do have control over is still, regardless of who the people are visiting aside, you do have control over how well represented you are your business and what you're the sort of messaging you're trying to put out there, by your website, and everything about it.

[00:04:47] Gillian: Okay, let's just take everybody through the website design process, like, how does it begin? And just take us through the stages there? 

[00:04:55] Saul: Okay. So initially, if there's after there's an enquiry form, or you call somebody up, generally, there's initial meetup, where  ideally, for us anyway, if we can, we always really like to meet up and actually just talk through what is actually required so people can, so  once again, you got that human connection, because ultimately, it's a digital solution, but you're still going to be working with people so we can get to know you understand your business, and your website project, and ultimately, your goals too, because that's going to impact on what the whole thing done on your approach, and how you are going to look at all of that.

[00:05:44]  Gillian: Okay, well, after the initial meetup, what happens next?

[00:05:47]  Saul: Okay, so the next stage, generally, is planning, when you've generally established what you want to do. But you need to dive a little bit more into planning, going to be more planning, the more complex it is, but you start to think about the type of content that's going to be on there. Plus, on top of visuals, any influences from other sides, and 

[00:06:12]  Gillian: Competitive research? 

[00:06:14]  Saul: Yeah, competitive research, too. But depending on the scope of the project, as well. And yet, again, this thing comes back to brand, if you've already got an existing business, and you're doing a side, you may have brand guidelines that need to be adhered to, if not, and you want those created them before you do any of this, you'll be doing that, as well. 

[00:06:40]  Gillian: I can love to planning what's next? 

[00:06:42]  Saul: Okay, so the web design moves. Generally, if you're going to have like a completely custom site from scratch, you would have a slightly different approach to other sorts of sites. So that might then include wire frames, or general idea of how the hell the site is going to actually flow. The sitemap, which is how many pages working at the top of content that's going to be on each page, and then having initial mock-ups for the client to actually review in order to get a flavour of what that is going to be and how it's going to be in line with the brand, and so forth.

[00:07:29] Gillian: Okay, well, after web design, what happens then?

[00:07:33] Saul: Okay, after web design, then you go into website development, and this is where we've talked about this before, to, you could say build it, and they will come well, they'll be coming anyway, whether you build it or not. But certainly the way you build it, too, is going to impact on, like how quickly they'll come how, in terms of like, how quickly the slides, we'll respond. Your website is coded and your design then comes to life that's more clickable, if you've got a completely custom site that's built from the ground up, if you're working with a content management system, like WordPress, or 10 different again for Squarespace and Shopify, because they've done all the hard work in terms of the actual coding. But even in saying that to when you've got an established system, there's still quite often always going to be some element of website development, if you have to customize elements of those need to be coded into the framework itself, which WordPress is a great option for because it gives you a lot of flexibility to be able to do that. 

[00:08:54] Gillian: Okay, well, after website development, what happens then? Where do we go from there?

[00:08:58]  Saul: Watch, it's up. Everyone comes to your site, like I'm rushing to your site? Well, sort of in one respect? Yes. You launch your website, there's always some level of testing before you do that, to make sure everything is in place. Then once it's actually launched into you. We always have some amount of testing afterwards to make sure parts on the website, work in the right way. just a general once or twice, or sometimes three times over,  to make sure content is right. There's no spelling errors.  

[00:09:39]  Gillian: Ongoing journey? 

[00:09:39]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. And  the end user, then the client also does their own testing as well.

[00:09:50]  Gillian: So do most websites require any ongoing maintenance?

[00:09:55]  Saul: Yeah, it depends. If you've got if you have a hosted solution, like we've spoken about before, like Squarespace, or Shopify or something like Wix, and somebody has built their own site, and we're coming on board to help them out, or we've built on that platform, because that's what they want to use, then no, not really all the maintenance is done for you. That's why those particular solutions, that's one of the advantages, but if you've got something like WordPress, WordPress has fairly regular updates to the system itself. And then also, to many of the plugins, are the elements that you use to add extra functionality to your site, they have to be  updated every now and again, and renewing security certificates and a whole host of other things. 

[00:10:56]  Gillian: Okay, well, what are some tips for finding a perfect website designer in Brisbane? 

[00:11:02]  Saul: in Brisbane? Well, I think one of the big ones yet again, is just one asking people, looking to people, trusted networks, trusted networks, the people that you already trust, either in person online, as well, there are a lot of small business groups, as well, that even if you don't know, some of those people, personally, people are usually quite willing to give you their views on who they've worked with. Who's been good, and yeah, people, people usually are there to help out, especially in small business networks to is just looking to people and to networks that you trust for opinions is a really great one, and Google reviews is also used by everybody these days. It's a good source for that, too, and you just have to have to work out which ones are real and which ones are.

[00:12:06]  Gillian: And you should also check out of course, the web designers’ sites. See if are you happy with the designers that they've done for themselves? That's a really key one as well.

[00:12:14]  Saul: Yeah, that's right, is that then once you actually find somebody, you have are the opinions of people and sources they trust, then you go and actually just see their work. And if some people more specific about the, what they're looking for, with certain things in a portfolio, just looking through the quality of their work, and really the flavour of the website, and ultimately, you're not just calling people up or sending them an email, seeing what they like to actually work with as people because people are at the end of it all, so that's it today, guys. Thank you so much, again for listening. Before we go, please don't forget to review and subscribe to this podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. Also, if you'd like to read the transcript of this episode, please visit our website at rpundhouse.cc forward slash web-design. We're on a journey to help local business businesses grow their opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.