StellarJay Digital Services provides a range of solutions to meet your unique needs. We will get to know you and your business before choosing the visual and technical approach.
Website Design
Live Love Laugh Bake
Logo Design
Smartek
Portrait, Product, and Event Photography
Hello Barkada
Website Development
Atticus Estate Settlement
The Process
When you choose StellarJay Digital Services you’ll have a partner and guide. You bring your vision and business expertise and I’ll bring decades of experience in creating digital solutions.
Set Direction
Before diving into the visual and written content of your website it’s crucial to think about why you are creating it. Clearly defining your target audience and message eases decision making. Who are they, what are their needs, and what do you want them to take away? Inevitably, you will have competing ideas and pursuing too many can make your message cluttered or vague. Returning to your initial direction at those times will make cuts easier.
Brainstorm
At this point there are no bad ideas. A video explaining the product use in action? Sounds compelling. A blog section where you can publish continually fresh content and show expertise in your market? Excellent! Just get them all out and recorded. Don’t be critical of the time needed to execute or the difficulty of acquiring assets… yet.
Create Focus
Now that you have lots of great ideas narrow to the ones that best support your story. This is also the time to get realistic about what can be completed for this version of your website. Yes, there will be multiple versions. A website is never “done”. Pick an intended release date and the best ideas that can be completed within that timeline. Prioritize those ideas, set aside some for a later date, and eliminate some.
Refine Content
It’s time to start crystalizing your ideas into a format that will work on the web. What color scheme and fonts are appropriate for your message? Bold or comforting. Classic or modern. Do you have a logo or need help creating one? What imagery and graphics will you include? You want focused visuals that support the written content and are not too busy or distracting. While all of these choices may seem overwhelming StellarJay will break it down, guide you through each and be your partner for product, facility, or portrait photography as well.
Build Version 1
With all of these content decisions made it’s time to start actually building. Depending on the intended platform, Squarespace, WordPress, or custom, this may be mocked design visuals that can easily be refined before coding, or we may put them together directly in the website platform like Squarespace. Remember this is a draft so don’t get hung up on perfection. We’ll use placeholder graphics and text if needed, but defining the layout, sections, and pages will be huge steps toward the finish line.
Polish
Step back from what’s been created and return to the initial direction and goals. Imagine you are your target audience and ask what you would take away. Is it hitting the mark? Can it be improved with more detail? Are the fonts, colors, and graphics supporting the message? Make a prioritized list of improvements, some for this version and some for the future and we’ll make changes.
Launch and Promote
Once the content and visuals are looking good we’ll nail down the tech. Pick an available domain, we’ll set up the hosting, perform some search engine optimization, and test that the website is working well on multiple browsers and devices, mobile, tablet, and desktop. We’ll thoroughly test any more complex features like eCommerce, an email mailing list, social, and analytics integrations. Then we’ll publish your website to the world and register it in search engines. Share your website with friends and colleges, your intended audience, and consider a search engine pay-per-click campaign. Celebrate!
Monitor
New content will keep users coming back and search engines reward you for it. If we’ve set up your website on a content platform like Squarespace you can take it from here, knowing you can call on StellarJay for help. Modifying headings, content, and even adding pages can be straight forward, but if you want to add something more complex or just don’t have time to do the work yourself, just reach out. You’ll want to check in on your website regularly. Are your website visitors trending up or down and are all the connections with other services functioning as expected? If there are any issues or you want to attempt promotions we can tackle that together.
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