How Our Process Works

Start with Research

Did you design your website from a template? Like you looked at a Wordpress template or another website in the industry and ‘filled in the blanks’ with your information? It’s a pretty common technique, but it’s a lame marketing practice. Doing so means your sales pitch is based on someone else’s website, which probably started from a basic template too. 

A more effective way is the opposite, build your website based on a refined pitch. 

We like to start with research; understand a market, understand the people spending money in that market, then start writing. We write to communicate with them, to connect with them. Then, we enhance that with a web page. 

It all starts with research, a message, and most importantly a plan. 

Inside the code

Every day we look at newly created websites and see the same problem over and over again. Some of the designs are good, and some even have decent media and copy, but they all seem to miss a few crucial points. 

First, the code is ugly.

Who cares what the code looks like? Nobody looks at it anyways, right? Well, I do… and more importantly search engines do.

With SEO being necessary in the last decade, it’s important to write for the crawlers too. 

Many basic websites share another common theme, they're super slooooowwww. Maybe you don’t notice on a good internet connection, but on a slow connection some sites take several seconds to load. We’ve all experienced it, and it’s actually not always necessary.

Many websites are slow because they are bloated, which means they send lots of extra unecessary code and data to the browser, what has to download and process before the page displays. Search engines promote pages that don’t have extra bloat slowing them down. 

But most importantly, we see a lot of new websites come up with no apparent plan to utilize some of the most powerful digital marketing tools available today, like mailing lists, funnels, or content. 

What’s wrong with these people!?

So why do businesses jump into getting a website developed without considering how it works with their marketing plan as a whole? That question isn’t rhetorical, I’d actually love to know. My best guess (and hope) is that they just don’t know their options.

Websites can do a lot more than serve as just a destination for patrons. Amongst other things it can be a powerful part of your advertising. Your website should help you get discovered. It should connect with people who go by your business every week and never stop to try what you’re offering. It should pull them through the door by presenting an offer that they can’t refuse. 

A goal oriented solution

So here’s the skinny on our process. We’re getting technical and pretty dense here so be prepared. 

There’s two ways you can start . 

One: you delegate the majority of the work to us. 

Two: do it yourself and save money, get help if you need it

I’m fine with either way, really. We’re here to support you. 

Option 1 - Research and Planning services 

• starts around $500
• get the blueprint as a bonus

Option 2 - Web Marketing Blueprint

• our entire process as a guide book for $79
• Unlock huge discounts when you complete parts

Either way, you’ll end up with a similar result: A research backed digital marketing plan for your business. One takes a few hours of your time, two will take a few weeks if you dedicate time each day. 

Regardless if you do it or we do it, it starts with research. 

Step 1 - Research & Plan

Research the customer to understand what drives their purchasing decisions. Understand the barrier between them and your product or service, then write an offer they’ll jump at. 

Collect the keywords, pain points, and wishes of your customer (from reviews). Study the alternative offers. Take notes. 

Do a lot of writing before starting the design.

1. Offers - that get people to contact you and buy
2. Ads - that your customers will want to click on
3. Content - to entertain and help your customer so them like your brand

Integrate keywords and SEO structure, put together graphics and media, then finally… start designing a website. 

Step 2 - Design

I’ll be honest, I didn’t get into this business to design. There are a lot of designers out there more talented than me. A lot of the websites I bash on have good designs. Design is important, but it’s not the bigger problem we’re trying to solve. 

That being said,a good designer with the wrong message won’t connect with anyone. 

Put together a comprehensive Design Brief that lays out the message and the plan very clearly, while still giving the designer room for creativity. 

Doing it this way means you’ll be sure to get a design that’s built around your marketing message and offer. This is what’s missing on most websites today. 

We have a handful of great designers we like to work with. A couple work as part of our team, some we outsource. And all designers like working with us because we make their job EASY, putting together all the information they need to start making great design choices. 

Step 3 - Development

Now with a great design we figure out how to lay it all out in code. It needs to work nicely with all the neat marketing tools that are going to bring your business into the 21st century. Plan, write, test, deploy. 

Funnels? Check. 

Landing pages? Check.

Location pages? Check. 

Email integrations? Check.  

Technical SEO? Check. 

Content? Check.

Components? Organized and Check.

We’ll wrap up this step delivering a custom web app that works super fast and has a modern feel. It makes search engines happy too, everything will show up on Google within a few days.

Website is up so… we’re done? No. 

We’re just getting started. 

Step 4 - Management

I’m going to breeze over this one because… 

Dare I say? It’s not important. 

It needs to be done, yeah. BUT it shouldn’t cost much. It’s just overhead, not actually helping you grow. 

We offer management pretty close to cost, just enough to cover our overhead of covering your overhead. 

I think agencies that charge hundreds for management fees are a rip. There’s an article on this site about it called Digital Agency Traps.

We’ll manage it and make sure it keeps working nicely if you want. Moving on to the good stuff…

Step 5 - Promotion

This is where things get interesting and profitable. 

You’ll have a powerful, traffic hungry, sales generating monster rumbling behind the gate of your web host, waiting for an influx of content consumers to come eat up your content and offers. 

Let’s get someone to go there, yeah? Sounds pretty smart, but a lot of businesses just squeeze this in as a final step without much thought. They just throw up a super unappealing ad (pun intended) that drops the viewer on the homepage! The first point of contact is the last thing these “digital agencies” consider. 

Your research and plan gets put into use again. 

The home and about pages are like a phone book listing, people only find it if they look you up. 

The rest of the website is a salesman, connecting the leads from your ads to the content they’re interested in, showing them products or services to help, and giving them an offer. 

What’s important - 

1. The ad that gets them in
2. The content that makes them like and trust you
3. The offer that makes them want to give you their money

Directing ads to your homepage is a waste of money. You’ll get leads, but your cost per lead will be really high. 

The big marketing agencies have collected creepy amounts of data from everyone to create unique advertising profiles for each of us. If you’re marketing online you need to leverage it to be profitable. You do that with targeted marketing.

There are two categories here: 

1. Product or service ads - attract people ready to buy
2. Content ads - attract people interested but not ready to buy

Product or service ads direct to landing pages. Each one is written based on the ad as a solution and great offer. You can have multiple landing pages per ad and see which ones perform the best. 

Content ads can direct to opt-in pages where people provide their email for access to the content. If the content is helpful and interesting, they’ll probably open an email from you with more content. 

Content ads can also direct to public content that they don’t need to provide their email to read. After the content you can offer them opt-in content via email. 

Create content that addresses the problems your customers have. Help them work toward solving their problems. When they’re ready to buy a solution they’ll go to you. 

This setup will bring in warm leads immediately, and warm up cold leads over time. 

What about the homepage? 

• It’s there (not diminishing the importance of it)
• It provides a high level view of your business
• It reiterates your message and offer
• It directs traffic

Easier Ways

The way we work and build things is more involved than the typical digital agency. It’s more work. Most businesses use easier methods that spend less time on writing and planning. 

Have a friend build it

I personally started in this industry building websites for friends. That being the case, I have to support business owners who want to help their friends. Once word of warning, I’ve since had to go back and redo all those early websites because they were built with templates, not with a good plan. 

Use Wordpress

A lot of businesses use it, so go ahead. Wordpress sites power the majority of internet websites for several reasons. 

1. You can build a professional website without writing code
2. It was an early and stable solution that’s proven itself long term
3. It has a turnkey Content Management System (CMS)
4. A lot of add-ons are available to extend its functionality with minimal setup

There are drawbacks though and we don’t use it. We prefer other options, mostly because they’re performant, clean on the inside, and are more versatile. We write clean code. 

web.dev/learn/performance/why-speed-matters

Conclusion

If you’re ready to build a website for your business, don’t start with the website. Get a solid marketing plan and design your branding before you start. Building the website will become much simpler, cost less, and perform better. 

The internet is flooded with outdated and underperforming websites. With a modern and well planned marketing strategy you can stand out online and refine a low flat rate for leads. 

If you’re not implementing the tools mentioned here then you’re leaving ROI on the table for your digital marketing spend. 

Option 1: We can create and execute a marketing plan for you. You get the blueprint. We only require a few quick and organized meetings with you. 

Option 2: You take our blueprint and do it yourself. You can get help from us or anyone you prefer. 

Learn more about the blueprint here: Website and Marketing Blueprint