Most people judge a website by what they can see: the home page, the photos, the colours. That part matters, but it is the smallest part of the job. Most of the work that decides whether a site brings in business happens before the design starts and after it looks finished. This article walks through what that work involves, using the way we build websites at Accent Webs as the example.
What happens before any design starts?
The first conversation is about the business, not the website. What should a visitor do when they arrive? For a B&B, it is usually checking availability and booking direct. For an accountant, it is picking up the phone. Who are the customers, and what do they type into Google when they need you? The answers shape every decision that follows.
From there, we plan the structure. Each page gets one job and one search term to aim at, so that two of your own pages never end up competing for the same search. It sounds like a small point. It is one of the most common reasons a site’s inner pages fail to rank.
If you already have a website, we list every page it has before anything changes. Each old address is matched to its new one, and permanent redirects are set up so that visitors and Google follow the move. Skip this step and a business can lose years of search visibility overnight.
All of this goes into a written proposal: what will be built, how long it will take and a fixed price for that work. We have written separately about why the cost of web design varies from one business to the next.
What does the design stage involve?
We design for the phone first, because that is where most of your customers will meet the site. The questions are practical ones. Can someone find your phone number without scrolling? Does the booking button sit where a thumb can reach it? How many taps does it take to get from a Google result to an enquiry?
The look comes from your business, not from a theme somebody else is also using. We work from your existing logo and colours, and choose type and layout to suit the people you sell to. When a site needs proper photography, we arrange it through a Galway studio we work with, because stock photos rarely show a business as it really is.
What goes into building the site?
We build on WordPress, so you can change your own text, photos and opening hours after launch. Behind that editing screen, most of the effort goes into things you will never see.
Speed is the main one. Images are sized for the screens they appear on. Fonts are loaded from your own server rather than a third party. Pages are cached so that a returning visitor is not waiting for the site to rebuild itself. None of this is visible, and all of it affects whether people stay.
Accessibility is built in at the same time, not added later. That means readable contrast, headings in a logical order, descriptions on images and forms that work with a keyboard. The international standard for this is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and meeting it from the start costs far less than retrofitting it.
Where does SEO fit into the build?
Search optimisation is part of the build, not something bolted on afterwards. Google’s own SEO starter guide describes the basics: a logical site structure, descriptive page addresses, a unique title and description for every page. Those are decisions made while the site is being built. Getting them wrong at that stage means paying to undo them later.
On every site, we write the page titles and meta descriptions individually, set out the headings in order, link related pages together and add structured data so search engines can read what the business is and where it operates.
That groundwork is what lasts. Westport Honey has held position one on Google for its main search term for around six years, on a site built this way from the start.
What gets checked before launch?
Every page is tested on real phones and in the main browsers. Every form is sent to make sure the message arrives in the right inbox. Pages are measured against Google’s Core Web Vitals, which track how quickly the main content loads, how quickly the page responds to a tap, and whether things jump around as it loads.
On a redesign, the redirects are checked again once the new site is live. Redirects have a habit of going missing when a site moves to a new server, and finding that out from a drop in enquiries is the expensive way.
What happens after the site goes live?
A website needs looking after. WordPress, its plugins and the server underneath all need regular updates, and backups only help if someone has checked they can be restored.
We offer that support on an ongoing basis for clients who want it, with no contract tying anyone in. We set up the hosting with an Irish provider in your own account, so the site is yours whatever you decide.
When something needs changing, you talk to Gerry, the same person who built it, and he already knows how every part of it fits together.
