Read time: 6 minutes
Whenever we pay someone to do something, we do so because we want that specific task “off our plate” and in the hands of professionals.
And for a lot of services, this usually means that whoever is the “client” is pretty hands-off with the process.
From getting someone to do our laundry to hiring a freelance writer, a lot of people paying for these services will, more or less, be hands-off.
(Although this does vary depending on the service, as you do want to be a little more involved when it comes to hiring freelancers or asking for a more complex service.)
As a website agency ourselves, we’ve had numerous clients walk through our doors and ask us:
“How involved do I need to be in this project?”
“Can I give you [insert resource], and you can take it from there?”
We understand why many clients ask us this — we are professionals, and part of the reason why they hire us is to make their lives easier — but the truth is that web development and design requires a slightly different approach.
Although we certainly can take certain pieces of information from a client and build a site based on that, seldom is that going to lead to a successful result or positive experience.
For a client to truly receive a quality site and project experience, they need to be involved in the project process in some shape or form. Although the level of involvement varies from client to client, the point remains the same.
Not sure how to be involved in your own project process?
Here are three different ways our clients have successfully been involved in their website build.
Share your story
Although we are the experts in web development and design, you are the expert of your business.
Only you know what makes your business tick.
When we chat with you, we want to hear everything about you, your business, its services, and more.
This information helps inform us of a few things.
- Your business: a pretty obvious one, yeah? For us to create a site that’s tailored to your business, we need to know more about it. From the services you offer and people you serve to the mission and vision of your business, we want to hear what makes your business unique.
- Your goals: we get to learn what you want out of your site and how it contributes to your business’ bottom line. We want to make sure our builds always accomplish that while adhering to the highest standards of web accessibility.
- Your preferences: got something you do and don’t like about websites? We keep that in mind throughout the website building process and ensure it’s included or excluded from your new site.
- Your competitors: if you like a particular component of a competing site — or if you notice something that’s not offering your audience value — we want to hear about it. We want to help you separate yourself from your competitors, and it’s important that we learn who your competition is (friendly or not) so that we can position your website appropriately.
Frankly, the more information you provide, the higher the chances that you walk away with a site you love.
We may be fantastic web developers and designers, but we only go as far as you let us.
Create content
Now this will vary from agency to agency, as some businesses offer content writing services.
As for us?
We do offer content writing services as part of our web development process, but more often than not…
Our clients opt to write the content themselves.
This is no knock at our own abilities (our in-house writer — Michael Avila — is a proven content writer himself) but the process of properly writing web content is an arduous one that can take up a chunk of time within the project.
For many clients, they simply believe it will take less time to “do it themselves,” and that’s totally fine!
We typically provide a “content planner” to our clients. This maps out what our clients should write based on the pages we’ve identified need to be created, removed, and combined during our strategy sessions. Additionally, it will allow clients to provide other digital assets such as video links and photos.
It’s also where we see some problems.
Whether it’s because of other responsibilities or struggling to put content together, this is a common bottleneck within a project process.
Our best projects have been with clients who have already had the content written or actively work to get it back to us quickly. This may be as quick as one day or as “long” as a week, but the turnaround time is short.
Our advice for you?
If you know your site needs work regarding its copy and content, make sure you take the time to work on it. Yes, we may still suggest some new pages, but you won’t have to start from scratch.
With some proactive work, what could potentially look like 10 pages could only be one or two.
That saves you time.
It saves us time.
It ultimately saves you money and keeps your website project on track.
Give feedback
When it comes to web design projects, few things contribute more to a successful website than feedback.
For us to create a beautiful website, we need feedback from our clients.
We want to make sure we’re getting each page in our process as close to your vision as possible. Now don’t get us wrong, there have been times when we’ve gotten it “right on the money,” but that’s not always going to be the case.
Sometimes a page or functionality needs revisions, and that’s ok.
But it can be difficult for us to get it right if we’re not getting that feedback.
For many people, the apprehension comes because we are seen as the experts. And while that may be true, only you know what you ultimately want out of your website.
You hire us to build the site of your dreams, and it’s important that you provide us with the appropriate feedback so we can ensure that’s the result.
For many website projects, they come with numerous revision rounds, and that can come in many forms.
Some may opt for feedback meetings, while others prefer feedback forms or emails.
For us, we prefer to receive comments directly on the website (we use a great tool called Userback for this) followed by a meeting to review the feedback together. These are great opportunities to understand what we did well, what was a little off, and what missed the mark.
But the most important thing?
Provide the feedback.
It will be the difference between getting the website you want and a website that’s “kind of” what you want.
And we’re sure you prefer the former.
During all of our website projects, we expect our clients to be involved in some shape or form.
Interested in this type of collaboration?
See how Unity Web Agency can work with you to build the website that captures your business’s identity and showcases why your audience should work with you.
All while ensuring your site is accessible to anyone, regardless of ability.