5 Questions to ask Your Web Design Clients Before you Begin your Project (Serious Time Saver!)
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If you're doing client website projects, but for some reason find that those projects are always dragging on way longer than they should...🤨
You're hanging around, or stressin' out as your client sends you dribs & drabs of the things that you need
Or maybe you're even waking up in the middle ⏰ of the night thinking things like...
"Shoot, where is their domain name right now?!"
And ..."will I be able to get it to their new website in time for launch 🤷♀️ ?!"
If that's you take heart ❤️! My friend it does NOT need to be this way...
We'll have you runnning a sharp ship, and even getting back your "you time", large glass of Pinot 🍷 & the next episode of The Crown anyone?!
With these five vital questions that you need to ask your new website client before your project gets started!
Not only will your life be SO MUCH BETTER, your client will have a five star organized experience, with a project completed on time & a rave review to write for you, whilst you move on to the next project, meaning more projects in your year, and therefore more revenue too 💰💰💰
Question #01 - what style & vibe are we going for for your website?
And what other websites do you like and find inspirational?
Now, you might have already realized as a website designer that people are pretty terrible at explaining what they want visually with words 🙃.
So I like to have my clients share visual ideas visually.
I have them create a Pinterest board and/or give me links to websites that they find inspiring and they would like theirs to emulate.
I get clients to share three to five inspiration websites with me, and then I actually discuss those websites with them. I don't just end there because I have clients point out the specific bits that they like and dislike. And this my friend is the key! 🔑
In that inspiration website, it's important for you to know what the thing is that draws them to it.
Is it the color scheme?
Is it the button animations?
Is it the hand-drawn custom graphics?
Is it the photos or the layout?
Oftentimes when I do this exercise and actually have them point out the bits and pieces that they really like about the website, it tends to be one or two things on that website and not the entire thang! And that's super important for you to know because you do not want to spend ages creating something for them when that wasn't even the bit of the inspiration website that they liked in the first place! (Trust... this one was learned from bitter experience!)
So remember, don't just get a list of inspirational websites. This is what most website designers do, and it's what causes them the problem, but also specifically ask what it is that they like and even dislike about the website.
Question #02 - all of the practical deets 📋.
This is the thing that's easy to forget when you're excited to get started with the creative design process! But here we're talking things like logins, where their domain name is right now, which company do they buy the domain with, and do they want to move it to the new website-building platform?
Also, do they want things like their email and their address and their phone number to appear on the contact page?
For example some companies want just a contact form, others want the actual details, including their address posted online.
You need to figure out what the client wants to share on their website before you begin. A
Pro tip: Also find out the year that they started their business, so you can use that in the copyright note in the footer of their website and also their legal business name which might be different from what they typically go by.
Question #03 (more of a section if you will!) is the actual website content ✏️ 📸.
So often new website designers are confused as to what is their job as the website designer and what is their client's job to do.
So to make it easy on ya, I've made a list!
Generally, this is done by the client or maybe some other professionals that they hire,
Copywriting
Gathering photos and uploading them to a shared folder
Providing logins
Giving a list of edits
Setting up their email marketing system
Setting up appointments in appointment scheduler
Paying for the website/hosting plan
and generally this is the stuff that is done by you.
Basic keyword research
Building the site
Moving a domain
Doing edits to the site
Adding email marketing form to the site
Adding appointment scheduler to site
Now, I know there's little bits of these things which are kind of confusing, so if you have questions about anything else, if it's a "you" task or a "client" task, feel free to ask me in the comments below. I'm happy to help you!
Basically, your client gets you the content and you build the website. That's roughly how the work divide goes.
A note on the quality of the content...
Now, as you might have learned from doing a few client projects, the quality of the content, the photos especially, greatly affects the quality of the site design and therefore your desire to use this example piece in your portfolio!
One thing which my Square Secrets Business™ students always ask me about is
"how do I get clients with good quality content so I can build portfolio pieces that I want to put in my portfolio?"
A bit o' truth talk for ya... the key here is to raise your prices 💵 !
The faster you get into higher price points, the faster you'll get clients who give you the quality content that you can make amazing websites with!
But how do you confidently raise your prices?
I would suggest taking a legit website skills course and a web design business course.
But Paige, you have a web design course & a web design business course... of course you're going to say that (pun intended!)
OK... so hear me out
I surveyed over 700 web designers to find out what exactly was the difference between the ones who were charging premium prices and the ones who were not.
And this was the thing.
Courses were the biggest differentiating factor.
I should clarify here. We're not taking college degrees or university courses, we're talking online courses.
In our survey of the designers who were self-taught, less than 2% of them charged over $5,000 per project.
Whereas for the designers who had invested the most into their online education over 23% of them were charging $5,000 plus per project.
Meaning you are 11.5 times more likely to be charging premium rates and therefore getting clients with better quality content if you take some online courses!
So legit online courses are super worth it!
My Squarespace Business course opens for enrollment just a coupla times a year, and the students who go through it raise their rates fast.
We're talking going from charging a few hundred dollars for a project to that same designer charging $11,000 a project in as little as a year or two (see past student Lindsay's story - it's prrreeettty impressive!)
Question #04 - what's your end goal for your website?
Ask them something like, what's the first step you hope visitors will take when they land on your homepage?
This helps you decide what to prioritize in the design, helps you make decisions like what item in the top navigation should be made into a button and what should the call to action in the footer be?
When we're designing (we're like alchemists!), we can guide the site visitors to certain bits of the site through the hierarchy and design choices that we make.
And so...
it's important that we actually know what the website's end goal is in order to design with that in mind, and therefore make the site as effective for our clients as possible.
Question #05 - who's involved in feedback & approval?
This question is vital and I suggest not asking it once a project is started, but actually before you even decide to work with that specific client.
Why? The more people giving feedback on the website, the more difficult the project will be to manage.
Now of course, there are definitely boundaries that you can put in place and expectations you can set. But generally the more cooks in the kitchen 👩🍳 , the more hassle for you.
So if you're doing a few potential client consult calls that week and you have your pick of clients and only so many design spots, then I would honestly seriously consider giving the design spot to the project that the least number of people involved!
And definitely, definitely stay far faaarr away from projects which need the approval of a board at a monthly meeting!
That will massively disrupt your timeline and your process. I have a strict, never work with any company or organization where they need board approval on their website before my project can be completed... those projects can sashay away my friends!
But what if you don't have the luxury of multiple consult calls booked every single week and therefore your pick of clients?
Well, it means it's time to really nail generating leads into your web design business. And to do that, you need a marketing strategy to help you with that.
Luckily I have something to help you do just that! My creepily accurate quiz tells you exactly what client finding method matches your personality type (and therefore helps you take a first step in finding clients in a way that brings you joy & gets you results - win win!) It also has some serious slumber party "who's your favorite Backstreet Boy vibez" and I am here for that!
When you get way more inquiries, you can be pickier and you can start going with the projects that have the best photos, have minimal people involved in giving feedback, and have the style and vibe of the websites that you wanna work on and do more of ... and of course raise your prices !
Now, granted, even if you nail asking your client all of these questions, and therefore have everything you need to start the project well, your onboarding process might still be a mess and you might still spend hours trying to get the project even started.
Well once again (how do I do this 😉 ?!) I've gotcha covered!
