What happens after you say yes: how I build a website, step by step
How a build with me works: the Acuity Hub, where it all happens, then the four stages from the first call to after launch, and what I need from you at each.
By Drew Palframan, Ucluelet · · 3 min read
Photo: Ucluelet, my own.
The short version
- Everything runs through the Acuity Hub: your requests, the previews you approve, and your invoices.
- Four stages: Discover, Build, Launch and Grow.
- You get a written scope, with a timeline and a price, before any work starts.
- After launch, changes come straight to me, the person who built the site.
The question I get most on a first call isn’t about price. It’s “so what actually happens?” Some people have been through a build before that stalled for months. Some have never done one and figure they’ll be handed a form and left to it. So here’s the whole thing, in the order it happens, with what I do at each stage and what I’ll need from you.
Where it all happens: the Acuity Hub
Early on, I set you up with an account on the Acuity Hub. It’s my client portal, and it’s how you and I talk, for the build and for as long as I look after your site. Pretty much everything is done there. You send me your requests there, your previews show up there for you to look at and approve, and your invoices and payments are there too.
Honestly, it’s there so nothing gets lost. No digging through old emails for the version of the homepage you said yes to, or the photo you sent back in March. It’s all in one place, and you can check on it from your phone whenever you like.
Discover
A kickoff call to understand your business and scope what your site needs to do, with a realistic timeline before any work begins.
Build
Designed and hand-coded around your business, with you reviewing progress and signing off before launch.
Launch
Deployed with SSL, DNS and uptime monitoring set up and kept running as one hosting plan. The domain renews separately, at the registrar's price.
Grow
As your business changes, the same person who built the site changes it with you. Bigger systems are scoped separately.
1. Discover: a call, then a scope
It starts with a call, usually half an hour. I want to know what the business does, who calls you, what they ask for, and what you wish your website did for you. From that I write up a scope: which pages, what each one is for, which tools the site needs (a quote form, a booking calendar, a gallery), the look you and I land on, and a realistic timeline. You get it in writing before any work starts, with a price that doesn’t move unless the scope does.
What I need from you here: an hour of your time, and honesty about what you don’t like on the sites you’ve seen.
2. Build: design, then code, and you see it as it goes
I design the site around your business instead of squeezing your business into a template, and then I write the code by hand. You see it as it comes together: the previews come to you in the Hub, and you tell me what’s wrong while it’s still cheap to change. Most of the back-and-forth in a build ends up being about words and photos, not layout, which is why the next bit matters more than it looks.
What I need from you here: photos of your actual work and your actual place, and the facts for each page. You don’t have to write polished copy. You just have to tell me the truth about the business, and I do the writing with you.
You just have to tell me the truth about the business, and I do the writing with you.
3. Launch: the part you never have to think about
Once you’ve approved it, I put it live: the domain pointed at it, the certificate that gives it the padlock, and my monitor checking it every minute from then on. If it ever goes down, I know before you do. Nothing for you to set up, and nothing to remember.
What I need from you here: access to wherever your domain name is registered, or a few minutes on a call so you can make the change yourself while I walk you through it.
4. Grow: the same person, next year
A website isn’t finished at launch. Hours change, you start a new service, you want this summer’s photos on the homepage. Those changes come straight to me, the person who built it, not to a support queue. You send the request in the Hub, I make the change, and when there’s something to look at, the preview comes back to you there before it goes live. Bigger changes, like a new tool or a new section, get scoped and quoted the same way the first build was.
What I need from you here: a request in the Hub when something changes. That’s it.
How long it takes
It depends on the size of the site, and mostly on how quickly the photos and the facts come in. The timeline in the scope is honest about both. The estimator on this site gives you a rough timeline and a price before you’ve even talked to me, and the services pages say what each package includes.