The journey to building your website

A step-by-step journey for creating your website, from the initial project ideas all the way to its launch day. Learn about the pivotal roles of discovery sessions and content audits in crafting a site that truly represents your brand and goals.

From a concept to a website’s official launch 

Beginning the journey of building a website is a transformative process that requires meticulous planning, creativity, and strategic execution. 

If we told you we’ve sharpened this process into a fine art, would you believe us? 

Would you believe that we have figured out how to ensure that each step, from your initial idea to your website’s final launch, is carried out with precision and tailored to your own particular needs? Sounds tough right?

Walk here with us through a step-by-step pathway to building a website, one that makes special emphasis on the importance of an unrevealing discovery session, a precise content audit, and a refined style guide.

Discovery: A session to define 

To ensure the final product actually does represent both the brand and its core audience accordingly, this is where the website’s foundation is laid.

Once you’ve taken this step it means that we are diving deeper together, into the discovery phase, into the heart of what it is you want, who it’s for, and how to make this all stand out in the digital market. 

For us at LightSpeed it’s about understanding the specific functionalities you envision and making it real. It’s a collaborative effort where your brand’s core essence is explored, and how it will translate into the digital realm begins to take form.

It is also here where we ensure everyone is well-informed about terms, conditions, and required procedures. We’ve developed predefined website solution packages – clear scope and pricing, audit function when necessary, training course in some cases, and between one to three months of free hosting – for those of you with straightforward clear needs, and we can also customise discovery phases for the ones whose ideas are more in need of detailed agreements.

This approach aims to deliver high-quality websites efficiently, streamlining our internal processes and empowering your site.

Content Audit: The integral part

Next, we take a good look at your content’s quantity and quality. If you’ve got existing stuff, we’ll see how it fits with your new site; if not, no worries, we’ll know then what your website is in need of. 

This step is all about making sure your website will speak your language and be capable of reaching out to your audience specifically. Identifying content strengths, gaps, and information to be added, we expose your content’s quality and relevance.

At this state you will encounter a content assessment to ensure it all aligns with your brand’s messaging, values, and SEO goals. A content audit lays the groundwork for the good planning of a cohesive and engaging site. 

This is where all the content information needed is set out on the table.

Style Guide: Your digital identity 

Here’s where we decide on your website’s look and feel. We’re talking about logo-extraction colour scheme, typography, UI elements like buttons and links, and all the visual touches that will make your site uniquely yours.

By providing clarity, our outlined style guide methodology empowers your business to outshine online, weaving its ethos into every visual element of your site, to be recognised across all digital platforms. For this, each of our packages includes a style guide design exercise for visual elements to align with your brand’s essence. 

The creation of a style guide is an important turning point in the journey that sets your consistent high-quality online communication beyond aesthetics.

Planning: The structural map

Our internal planning mode-on! With the foundations already decided upon, our team of designers and developers get down to work, translating our discovery session’s insights, and the style guide directives set, into the sitemap structure and layout of a functional beautiful website. 

By ensuring clarity, ease, and efficient navigation, websites can better provide their visitors with the information they seek, and visitors enjoying a pleasant browsing experience will most likely stay longer on site. 

On top, how search engines efficiently index your pages is highly influenced here.

Site Build: Loading your content

With valuable insights and a structured plan website construction may now begin and your vision starts coming to digital life through our eyes. 

Following the objectives previously set, we focus on creating intuitive, user-friendly experiences, ensuring that every aspect of your site, from homepage to a contact form, fully reflects your brand and nicely resonates with your audience.

This is the stage where creativity meets technology.

Design: Using WordPress’ site editor

All this planning, that’s finally now out of the way, facilitates the design process we follow, our content-first design approach which states that only once the content and layout is approved, the full-fledged site design can take place. 

It’s time for the creation of all the site’s pages, the integration of necessary functionalities, and the addition of requisite plugins. To further optimise this process, we’ve developed for each website package specific site build templates with pre-configured settings for a quick and efficient setup on both WordPress and WooCommerce. 

We also pride ourselves on the release of our LSX 1.2 theme, compatible with the latest WordPress and WooCommerce versions, and on our significant internal growth adapting to new tools like Figma and GitHub, enhancing our team’s design and development capabilities.

And the exciting part is full-on!

Training: Upskill yourself for free

To empower you to manage your website’s content effectively, we provide training on how to use the WordPress Block Editor, Site Editor and on Woo store maintenance to ensure you can later update your content and keep your website fresh. 

If you want to also start learning WordPress for yourself we strongly recommend to head to the WordPress site and check out their free courses:

In any case scenario, whether it’s updating content, implementing new features, or providing help, we’re here to support your growth every step of the way.

Testing: Site validation and feedback

We encourage comprehensive reviews of each page. From correcting minor details, to ensuring the accuracy of all content, this phase is the polish-for-perfection one. 

At LightSpeed we like to organise ourselves through checklists as well as guides. A very nice reference to share is this Pre Launch Woo Checklist 

Before we show your site to the world, we also conduct thorough testing to ensure everything works seamlessly. We check that it looks great on all devices and that there are no glitches, including functionality tests, compatibility checks, and performance optimisation for a smooth and enjoyable experience for all users. 

This is also the perfect opportunity for your final observations. 

Hosting: Fast, secure & reliable

In the digital world, your website’s home matters just as much as its design. Whether you’re starting small or ready to scale, opting for a solution that’s tailor-made for it means you’re setting your site for success from the get-to-go. 

Here’s why LightSpeed’s specific WordPress and WooCommerce hosting solutions come into play:

  1. Speed and efficiency: our hosting is built to handle WordPress sites, ensuring your site loads quickly and runs smoothly, even under heavy traffic.
  2. Enhanced security: with sophisticated firewalls and spam protection, your site is guarded against malicious attacks and unwanted intruders.
  3. Reliable support: since we host the websites we build, you’ll get faster and more efficient support. It’s like having a direct line to your site’s caretakers.
  4. Daily backups: you can sleep easily knowing your site’s data is backed up daily, keeping your content safe and sound. 
  5. SSL support: every package comes with SSL support, making your site secure and boosting its Google ranking.

The Launch: Your website goes live

Your migrated site to a live hosting environment, with a detailed checklist that has been perfected over numerous test-launches, ensures smooth transitions with minimal disruptions. Once all extraneous elements are removed backups are created, and within 24 to 48 hours your new site is accessible to users worldwide. 

It is here where we provide you with the vital login credentials, ensuring your security and easy site’s access. And it is also here where we highly recommend you to pair your site with Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4. Using Google Site Kit by Google you can set up simple metrics and follow how your audience finds, reacts, and interacts with your website.

Building a website with LightSpeed is a journey of collaboration, innovation, and growth. From the initial spark of your idea to the excitement of this launch day, we’re dedicated to creating digital experiences that not only meet but exceed your new website’s expectations. 

The time for the big reveal! 

LightSpeed’s final recap

At the end of 2023 we at LightSpeed reflected on a significant year filled with growth and innovation. The development of a revolutionised content collection service, which frameworks a big part of the process here described, signifies a key achievement that directly addresses budget constraints we felt are affecting proper content generation processes in our industry. We’ve identified critical areas for improvement, including creating site templates and full page patterns, and effective content collection methods that organise and reduce time challenges at every stage.

Our journey together starts with your initial inquiry. Once you fill out your details on our Wordpress or Woocommerce customised forms we have a briefing that leads us both into our initial free consultation stage. We’ll meet to get to know each other and give way to our brainstorming exchange into understanding your brand’s vision and goals, and establishing our partnership.

We begin by conceptualising and shaping your digital presence on our discovery session, reaching an estimation that once approved is followed by a proper offer, or even better directly through one of our carefully designed basic, standard or premium packages. Your vision now becomes our mission and from here onwards we are officially building your website. 

Every case has its demands and we adjust well to each, so for those with complex projects in mind we can also offer aid through our paid evaluation to develop more accurate spec documents. Our operational model emphasises adaptability, consistent delivery, and virtual meetings, setting clear expectations regarding communication and project processes from the very start of the way. 

For us it’s always about making things as simple as possible and getting you from A to B with a smile on your face. Imagine sitting down with us, chatting about what you want and then watching it come to life. That’s what we are here for.