The planning phase is where we ask all the hard questions—so we’re not guessing later. What’s the purpose of this site? Who are you talking to? What do you want them to do? What pages do you actually need?
Most clients come to us with a rough idea of what they want. The planning phase turns that rough idea into a clear blueprint everyone agrees on. It’s the fastest and least expensive phase—and the one that saves the most time and money downstream.
What happens in this phase
- Goals What should this website do for your business? More inquiries? More sales? Building credibility?
- Audience Who are your visitors, and what do they need to see to take action?
- Key actions What’s the one thing you most want a visitor to do? Everything else on the site supports that
- Site structure What pages do you need? What belongs on each one? What can be cut?
- Tone and voice What should your site sound like—approachable, expert, warm, bold?
- Brand assets We gather what you already have: logos, colors, photography, any existing copy.
What you walk away with
By the end of this phase you’ll have a site map, a content outline, and a shared understanding of exactly what we’re building and why. No surprises in the phases that follow—because all the hard decisions are already made.
A note on content
At the end of the planning phase, you’ll have a clear content outline—a page-by-page blueprint of what needs to be written. You can write it yourself, or hand it off to us as an add-on. Either way, we won’t move forward until the content is strong enough to lead the design.