Today I will try to explain to you the best way to proceed when it comes to creating a new website for a client or yourself. I can’t go into all business sectors, so it’s best to take an example. So let’s say the owner of a small restaurant comes to you and wants you to create a website for his business, how would I go about it?

First of all, I would find out exactly what this restaurant represents, everything is important. We should therefore ask ourselves the question.

What does the business offer?

In our example of a restaurant, this seems like a mindless question at first, food! But no, it is not that simple. The question can be broken down much further. What kind of food does the restaurant offer? Asian, Italian, Spanish, German, American? Does the restaurant offer upscale food or is it more fast food?

Does the restaurant have a delivery service, pick-up service, can you reserve a table? These are other questions I would ask immediately.

It is important to be able to empathise with the company in order to create a website that represents the company (in our case a restaurant) well. A website for a company is an extremely important signboard in this day and age!

Now there are a few things that need to be clarified in advance so that you can work properly.

Does the Company already have a logo?

I have experienced everything, shops that have existed for 30 years but have no logo are not uncommon. Sometimes there is a logo but it is not available digitally or only in very poor quality. Ask the question and make sure you get the logo, if they don’t have a logo yet or it needs to be digitised, you can offer to do it.

Are there already good photos?

Ask for photos and get them in advance before you start, if any exist. Here, too, I have experienced the strangest things. Make it clear to the owners of the restaurant that the photos have to be good, as they represent the business. If they don’t have photos, you may be able to take some yourself if you are a reasonably talented photographer, or a photographer may have to be hired. However, you will need photos for the website, the design and in the articles, so make it clear in advance that it will be needed.

Who writes the texts?

Make it clear in advance where the texts are to come from. The website will need various texts, a description of the company, descriptions on the start page and much more. You can of course start with lorem ipsum texts but it is important to communicate to the client that texts are important for the website and that the texts have to be written. It is best to set a deadline by which the texts have to be there.

Webspace

The website must be hosted somewhere. Do they already have webspace and a domain? Does the existing webspace meet all the requirements for the new website you are planning? These are also things that need to be clarified in advance.

Which CMS?

There are various free content management systems on the market, WordPress, Joomla and typo3 spring to mind. Nowadays, it makes little sense to do without a CMS, so the only question is which one? You should also think about this in advance, consider how you will implement things and whether there are already ready-made plug-ins that you can use. Does the CMS have everything you need to complete the job satisfactorily in the end?

Design

What should the client’s website look like? Make sure you find out before you start working. Talk to your client and ask what they like. Show and ask for examples and determine beforehand where the journey should go in terms of design.

Budget

Once we have found out the things we need to know, it comes to the question of budget. How much can the restaurant spend on a website?

It is important to make the client understand that the price of a website is scalable, so I personally always ask first about the price the client is willing to pay, what features they absolutely need and what would be nice to have.

Then you can make them an offer that is tailored to their budget. If the owners don’t want to give you any information, make them three or more offers with different features included in the price (websites are scalable).

Deadlines

It is important to set deadlines, not only for yourself but also for the client. You will see that when deadlines are set, the work progresses better. Without deadlines, a project will quickly get out of hand and you will never finish. So my advice to you is to set clear deadlines so that you don’t end up spending 3 months on a project that you could have finished in a week. Believe me, I speak from experience.

Stop the time you need to do things

I know that often complete packages are sold and the timing is rather flexible but it is still good if you measure the time for yourself. If you keep track of the time you spend on things, you will develop a better sense of how much things should cost.

Conclusion

There are many things to consider when planning a website for a new client. I hope I have been able to give you a little help on the things you should consider in advance. If you think that I have left out some important points, please let me know in the comments. As always, have a great day, see you soon!