When you work with Xizzee Web Designs, you own your site.  We can build it for you, and you can host with us, or you can take your site and host it elsewhere.

Do you have a small service business in Charleston, Summerville, Mount Pleasant, or beyond?  If you need website design help, we can help.  Creating a services website is like designing a new home; a lot of unseen work goes into it from behind the scenes.  Our Xizzee team knows how difficult it is to create a website, so we’ve created a seven-phase process to help you through all parts of designing and constructing your services website.

Seven-Phase Website Development Process 

Phase I: Business-needs determination (Pre-contract)

Before starting your website design, Xizzee completes a full review of your business sector and your local competitors on the Internet as well as in Charleston, Summerville, and other business areas.  Xizzee then discusses the business owner’s needs and goals for the website.  Some might want just one basic page, some three, others up to 20. Please note, we do not work with e-commerce or the sale of goods online.  We focus on companies that provide services.

Phase 2: No-Surprise Contract

Xizzee takes the time to explain how many pages the site will have and how that is priced in the contract.  There are many options available to our customers, and Xizzee strives to lay them all out, so there are no surprises.  Some items are flat fees while others are a-la-carte. Your Xizzee team uses the best WordPress hosting company, SiteGround, as well as the most reliable plugins for maximum flexibility and functionality on your site. Your team will use free plugins as much as possible to save you money; however, there are some things like security that you don’t want to skimp on.

Phase 3: Collecting Content 

This phase is most difficult for Charleston area business owners because you must sit down and write out all of the text that will be on the site. If you are interested in working with an outside copy editor, we can recommend one for you.  This copy editor will work with you to quickly get all of your content down on paper.

If you would rather work solely with the Xizzee team, we can help you, too. This would be like working with an interior designer before beginning the work on your new kitchen. Xizzee works in 1 hour of coaching to draw the information out of the owner.  Extra coaching is available for a fee if necessary, but it is worth it to get the information written down and ready for the next phase. You can also provide bulleted lists, and your team members will write the copy for you.

Textual Website Content

Xizzee provides a blank outline for business partners to fill out.  It can be shared via paper and pencil or electronically via Google Drive.  Your team will support each business partner in whichever method makes you most comfortable.

Graphical Website Content

Customers are very visual, so it is important to have a visually appealing website.  The trend now is for large high quality photos with smaller accent photos and graphics.  Your Xizzee team will set up collection space online for you to store and label your copyright-free photos.  If you would prefer to leave the choices up to your team, that is fine, too.  In the end, your team will ensure that you have a beautiful, inviting website for your customers to visit. Any photos that need to be purchased from stock photos will be shared for your prior approval.

Phase 4: Layout

Your team begins building the site at this point. Once the content is complete, the visuals begin.  The layout includes colors, font style, font size, headings, and graphics.  If samples or templates are available, they will be shown at this time.  Once a basic layout is agreed upon, the content inclusion begins.

Phase 5: Customer Review and Feedback

To ease the small business owner’s mind, your team will show you periodic updates to get feedback to ensure partner satisfaction in the website design.  One major rewrite and three minor rewrites/edits are included in the contract.  Because these changes can be very time-intensive, additional changes are available a-la-carte.  This phase is usually the longest based on partner satisfaction.  If you are not satisfied and proud of the new website design, our job is not complete.  Your satisfaction is of the utmost importance to us.

Phase 6: Hosting and Email Settings

Email is not included with your website.  Rackspace is a popular email provider. There will be no downtime for your email whether it be provided by Rackspace, Microsoft, or Google; however, you should definitely have an email with your domain.  To be professional, your email should read yourname@yourdomain.com.  If you need help setting this up, your team can help.

Phase 7: Website Submission to Search Engines

The final phase ensures that your new site can be found by the three major search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. In this final phase, Eileen creates a sitemap of your completed, approved site, registers it with the three major search engines, and submits it for indexing.