A complex website design requires a meticulous plan. Otherwise, designing and developing your website can take a considerable time to launch. The last thing you want is to delay the launch of the website as this can come at a cost of attracting new business customers and ultimately lost sales. If you do not have experience in web design and development, you should hire a web design agency.

This is especially true for those businesses with a complex website design, as the chances of errors are greater. When you can minimise the delays caused by mistakes, why not? You should search for a website design agency with experience in planning out a complex website design, otherwise the project can fall flat, causing you more problems, such as increasing costs incurred due to failure to launch the website or having a website that is not SEO focused or not user-friendly. Instead of risking this outcome consider engaging experts with vast experience in making complex website designs a reality.

We thought it would be great to provide you with the five steps every website design Melbourne agency should follow to create a complex website design:

Step #1:  Everything Starts with an Audit

When you visit a website design Melbourne agency, they should first invest time to understand your business and online and offline objectives and then first provide you with a detailed business and design audit. By performing an audit of your business and the type of products and services you sell, they will be able to gain a better insight on your position in the market against your competitors.

Ideally most reputable agencies have a detailed brief for you to complete. At times a phone discussion would take place where you should be ready to answer their questions about your business. A website agency that does not ask any or many questions is not one you should consider for a complex website design. Some of the questions you can expect them to ask you include:

  • What is Your Business About?

If you need a complex website design, the nature of your business might be complex. Even if it is not, they will ask you this question, as it allows them to understand what service and or product you actually provide and sell. When they plan a complex website design, they will not have to make educated guesses on what you do. If they have been in the business of website design and development for several years, they will have a considerable level of business acumen to translate your website into a lead generating asset for your business growth and reputation.   

  • Why Do You Need to Create a Website?

You want a website design to extend your reach among your target market, but do you know why you need to create a website. A website design agency will tell you that most of their clients do not have a clear answer for this question.

A website design agency will guide you into answering that question. Perhaps, you need a website to keep up with the latest marketing trends or you want to get ahead of your competitors. Most importantly, you want a website that attracts and converts leads into paying customers.

With the help of a website design agency, you will be able to determine the business problems you are experiencing and how a website can resolve it for your and your clients. Additionally, you may also have primary and secondary objectives in mind, such as increasing brand awareness and driving sales and customer engagement.

  • Who is Your Target Audience?

You should have an idea of who your target audience is, as the website design agency will build a website that attracts them to stay, browse, and buy or lodge an enquiry. Even if you are unsure about it, your website design agency will perform research to determine the demographics and psychographics.

Other questions you can expect a web design Melbourne agency to ask you include:

  • What makes your business stand out from others? (Known as your unique selling propositions or USPs. For example – exceptional service, free shipping, excellent product or service guarantee, price match guarantee etc )
  • Who are your top competitors? Finding information on your top competitors helps understand the strengths and weaknesses of their visual reputation and messaging in the marketplace and how you can play to your strengths via a stronger website than theirs.
  • What design elements would you like them to add to your website? These may include features that you saw and admired on other websites that you want your website to have.
  • What would you not want to have on your website? They will ask you about the type of features that you do not want to have on your website at all and this can include colour schemes, font, and certain design elements as well as interactive elements.
  • When are you launching your website? You will need to have a date in mind that you expect to launch your website, some companies have strict launch dates that coincide with other marketing activities.

Step #2:  Research Begins

Research is a critical part of designing a complex website design. Without extensive and detailed research, building and launching a website is fruitless and too often wasted spend. For this reason, it is quite important for you to only choose a web design agency with experience in designing websites that serve your business as more than just a showpiece.  

The right agency will perform a SWOT analysis —Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Each website design company has its own set standards on performing a SWOT analysis. Their findings will help them develop the information architecture and an SEO optimised content strategy of the website.

When you are following an SEO focused content strategy from the get-go, it prevents double spending, it improves the quality score, and allows you to launch your SEO and AdWords campaign within a few weeks instead of waiting for almost a month to launch them.

The research in the beginning may take time, but its an investment that will be worth it for your long term benefit. You can ask the website design company how long their research process takes, but most of them will tell you that it depends on the type of business you operate, and of course, the complexity of your website design and competitor landscape.

Step #3:  Time to Plan

At this point, the web design Melbourne agency will have everything they need to begin the planning process to design your complex website. With a team of website designers working together to create your website, you can expect them to provide you with results in a timely manner. An average website may take anywhere from upwards of 6 to 8 weeks to design and develop and launch. Their plan will include designing a website that follows all the best practices of website designing, conversions, and online marketing. Moreover, they will provide you with a website blueprint, which is a set of plans the website designers and developers refer to create your complex website. This limits unexpected obstacles from causing unnecessary delays in launching the website. Here is what a website blueprint typically includes:

  • It contains a lot of information about your website.
  • It contains a plan of every page that you will have on your website, such as the contact us page, about us page, services page, product page, portfolio page, and any other page that you have asked them to create for you. Of course, they will take care of all the SEO elements when designing your website, thus ensuring it gradually rises in the search engine results on Google and search engines when it launches.

Step #4:  The Website Design Creation Process

Website design agencies will only use a mobile friendly, high conversion rate, user friendly, brand focused, SEO optimised, and Google compliant website design. Your website designer will add the graphic elements from the website blueprint to your actual website.

Usually, they will design the homepage first followed by the other pages called “shell” in the world of website designing. The shell acts as a template for the content pages of your website because it features the primary navigational structure of your website. Once the website designers have built the shell, they will take your SEO optimised content and add it throughout your website in the proper areas.

At this stage, other elements that are implemented include the Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, eCommerce shopping carts, or interactive contact forms. Every component and element that is implemented at this stage is made functional.

Since your approval matters, each agency has a review process, asking for your feedback on whether they need to make any changes or additions to it. They will also write a valid HTML and CSS code that complies with Google and which increases both functionality and accessibility. Remember one of the greatest delays to launching any website is client supplied content in a timely manner, so be sure to be highly organised in supplying everything from text for every page, imagery and any videos that are relevant.

Step #5:  Ready to Launch

Website design agencies add final touches to your website as well as testing the various features of your website to ensure complete functionality. They will also test for compatibility issues, viewing your website between various website browsers and the most common devices.

Your agency will also check the valid code — HTML and CSS — to ensure that it is correctly written. Checking valid code means that your website meets the current standards of web development and design. Once your website designer receives your approval, they will use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program to launch your website. A fast hosting speed for your website is a crucial decision for both your websites usability performance as well as an important Google ranking factor.

When you engage a web design agency, they will discuss and explain their website design process, detailing exactly how they plan a complex website design. Whether your design is simple or complex, you should consider investing your time and financial resources with an experienced website design agency.