WEB DESIGN PROCESS & TIMELINE

 

We are often asked how long it takes to design and develop a website. There is no exact answer to this as the time will vary based on the complexity of the project, how quickly the client responds to requests for feedback and approval of certain stages as well as the size of the web site.

For the most part, however, most websites can be completed within 6-8 weeks. There are a number of variables involved – in addition to the client’s timely response to material and copy requests as well as feedback and approval requests, the scope of work will greatly affect the timeline as well.

For example, if you are having us design and develop a custom WordPress theme and plan to add all of the content yourself, the average turnaround time will be considerably shorter than if you are having us develop and format all of the interior pages for you (based on your provided content/copy).  Additional programming elements such as Scheduler, complex Plugin or WooCommerce will also affect the estimated timeline.

Below is a typical timeline for the design and development of a WordPress-driven web site.

Preliminary : 1-2 Weeks

With your initial contact, we will chat about your website ideas for your business, then we will send you the Web Design Questionnaire that will give us a sense of your web site needs, functionality, and design and I will send you a contract and invoice.  A signed contract and a 15% deposit reserve your start date on our development schedule.

Once your start date arrives, we begin working on the site architecture, preliminary design, and the estimated timeline for your web site. This takes 1 week for us to complete. At this point, we give you access to the web site, so that you can review the preliminary design for your site.

Start thinking about the elements you want on your website such as a color scheme, header design, or fullwidth photo sliders.  Take some time to evaluate your current page copy. Does your copy need updating or sprucing up?  Do you have a few blog content ideas (at least for 2 blogs) and special images and videos you would like to see embedded into your web site? Where will they be located,  in the fullwidth slider, on the page, or as a sidebar element?  These are all important design elements that will require your input and approval.

Design Revisions: 2-4 Business Days to 1 Week Per Round

Once you’ve had a chance to look over the initial homepage and interior page designs, you have the opportunity to provide feedback or request changes. Ideally you’ll get back to us in 1-2 business days, but we’ve had some clients take a week or more to get back to us. This is the type of thing that delays the project completion date. So how long this stage takes is really up to you…

However, once you do get back to us with any revisions, the typical turnaround time for relatively simple changes is 2-4 business days. Major changes to the design or requests for an entirely new design concept will take 1 week. We continue this process of fine tuning the design until we have your approval.

Development of Primary WordPress Theme Files: 1 Week

Once we’ve received your approval on the design, we are able to move on to the development stage. This is where we take the design and create the XHTML, CSS and PHP code and Plug-in installation that make up the functional WordPress theme files.

There is a core set of PHP files that make up the basic WordPress theme, including (but not limited to) the header, footer, content area, and sidebar, as well as default blog index template, regular page template, and individual blog post template.

We create a basic installation of WordPress theme so that you are able to view and interact with the theme files as they are being developed.

This is also the time, if you haven’t done so already, to pull together your page copy, blog content (at least for 2 blogs) collect your images and video and any graphics you would like to see added into your web site.

 

Development of Interior Page Content: 1-4 Weeks

This is where estimating a timeframe gets tricky because the content and number of pages will vary greatly from site to site.

The beauty of WordPress is that you are able to easily create all of the interior content pages yourself without knowledge of HTML. In most cases, clients will just need a custom WordPress theme that they take and continue to add all of the content pages themselves.

If that is the case with your project, you can skip over this step entirely; however, if you prefer to hand off the entire web site to us, we will gladly add all of the interior pages for you (based on your provided content).

The timeline for this phase varies greatly depending on the number of pages you are having us develop for you and if you are prompt with providing us all of the content, photos, and graphics for the site. If you have a 1 to 10-page site, for example, we can have the interior pages completed within 1 week. On the other hand, a 30-page website will likely take closer to 3-4 weeks to complete.

Of course, if you are not prompt with providing all content for the pages or if you frequently make revisions to previously approved content that you had already provided us with, that will slow down this stage as well.

Web Site Launch: 1 Week

Once we have your approval on the WordPress theme files, plugin functions and any content pages we’ve created for you, we will send you a final invoice for the completed work. We do require final payment of the invoice before transferring everything from our design studio  to your Host server. Once we receive the balance, however, we immediately get to work installing WordPress, a core set of essential plugins, the custom WordPress theme files and any content pages that we created for you, and then transfer everything over to your own web-hosting server.

After the transfer is complete, we run through a final set of tests to be sure that everything is functional, and you are all set! This marks the official launch of your web site, making it “Live” for the viewing public.

Makes Sense to Me! I want to learn more about how Climbbetty can help me with my custom WordPress website.