The story so far
I’m blogging about the development process for my own new website. You can read Part 1 here [link], where I discuss why, why now, who I’m working with, and how we started the process. We left it with a WordPress theme chosen, and me actually managing to share my branding info with my designer, Emily, so she can apply it.
Doing my homework
After the last meeting, I had a list of things I needed to write, or adjust from the current text on my site. Fortunately, I had two long train journeys before my next scheduled meeting with Emily, so I was able to get my head down and think things through.
I always tell my clients that I know how hard it is to write about yourself, or your services. And that’s still true even for me, a professional writer. I know what I do. I know all the ins and outs of it. And trying to work out a short, tidy version of all that information is a challenge.
When I work with clients, I encourage them to blurt. Just ramble, and tell me all of everything. I can then extract the gold, the common thread, the key points, and pull it all together. Maybe I should do that myself, although the cat will think I’m talking to her. Hmm. I might do that for the About page…
Behind the scenes
Emily has been busy too. She has created the beginning of a draft website with my colours on it, and my background, and a photo of me instead of some random woman.
Spot the difference!
It’s not polished yet, but it’s starting to look ‘like me’. Emily prefers to make the Homepage pretty much as good as it’s going to get before working on sub pages, so we’re focussing there for the moment, although I’m also creating text for the subsequent pages as we go along.
Meeting number 3
We had a third meeting once I was back from my travels, to see where we were.
Emily had put some of my drafted bits of text into the right places on the homepage, and snaffled some more from my existing site, so we chatted through that. We both also made lists of what we needed to do next.
I need to:
- Fill in all the places where Emily had put things like “[A brief description here. One or two sentences?]” on the draft.
- Find more testimonials
- Find photos
- Update my existing case studies, and probably write some more so that all six areas of the Services page have got something. And then write short versions of them all, for the six services sub pages. (this might take me a minute or three…)
- Check my Downloads to make sure they’re still current
- Write my process blog part 2 ü
The process so far
Emily says it’s been good working with me, as I’m delivering the things she needs without her having to chase them. I’m trying really hard to be the kind of client that I want, and make it easy for her, so I’m glad she feels that.
It feels like we’re a team, delivering a new website for me together. She’s not working for me (well, she is, but she’s providing a service that I can’t achieve on my own) and I’m not working for her, except that she can’t do her job if I’m not doing mine.
This is why it’s important to get on well with the person or people you’re working with on your website. Someone you can have a good relationship with is key to getting a project over the line that you, as the client, are happy with.
What’s next?
Emily and I have another meeting scheduled two weeks from the last one, in which time I will have done or found, hopefully, all the things she needs. I’ve already sent her the adjustments to the text for the home page, and another photo, so she can get on with her bit.
I’m also going to run the draft template past a few trusted people (husband, daughter, etc) to see what they think. The photo of me on the front may yet disappear!
Leave a Reply