Custom Web Design

Custom Web Design 💻

Our custom website designs are as unique as your business. No website template or recycled design is ever used for your project. We pride ourselves on creating a custom look that fits your company brand, culture, and mission.

Web design for Santa Rosa businesses

A website needs to look awesome, load quickly, and rank high in order to generate new customers and leads. Since 2011, we’ve helped local Santa Rosa businesses with their web design and marketing strategies to increase lead generation and customer satisfaction with intention-driven website design, and search engine optimization that works. If you’re not sure where to start or would like to revamp your existing website, we’d love to discuss your business goals starting with a free consultation.

Built in WordPress

We build the majority of our websites using WordPress; the most popular website builder in the world. Comprising 43% of all sites built on the web, we feel confident that our expertise in this area is likely a good fit for your business. WordPress websites also allow for endless integrations so your website can be customized to the needs of your business goals. Does this sound right for your small local business or growing company?

Designed for you

There are a lot of design templates out there. We don’t do that. We provide custom website designs that are original. We view your website as an expression of your business to the World Wide Web. Here, we are only interested in custom designs, built from scratch, matching your business. We handle the entire process, guiding you through options of color pallet, typography, user experience, transitions, hovers, and animations. What do you want your site to be?

Managed by us

We don’t expect you to manage the technical aspects of your website. As part of our custom websites, we provide website maintenance plans, hosting, security, and back-end updates to keep your site up and running. We also prefer to make site changes for you even after it has gone live. This includes making front-end changes like adding new pages, text, and images as well as all other technical back-end updates as well.

Web design FAQ’s

Responsive Design

Yes, it displays beautifully on any mobile device. All the websites we build dynamically resize depending on the viewer’s screen size. Whether they are on a phone, tablet, or desktop. Guarenteed.

Mockups

Multiple mockup options will be created for your new website. Having design options allows you to refine your preferences and get closer to a stellar result that represents your business, services, and goals appropriately.

Stock Photos

Although it is encouraged that businesses supply their own photography for the project, we understand that it isn’t always available. As part of your website project, we provide stunning stock photography to satisfy the visual element.

Graphics

All great websites should have accompanying graphics to support and break up the text. As part of our custom web designs, we create custom graphics that showcase your business as the unique entity it is.

Revisions

We expect there to be revisions to your website before going live. Multiple revision cycles are allotted for each stage in our website process. After all, we understand that an essential part of this requires your feedback to reach our collective goal.

Project Manager

Project managing, timelines and constant communication is a huge part of what we do. This includes constant email and telephone access to us, frequent check-ins and weekly progress reports during the duration of your website project.

From start to finish, we’ll guide you through the 5 stages of our custom web design progess. These 5 stages are listed below:

1. Discovery

The Meeting

A meeting is scheduled for us to learn more about your business and determine the general project scope. In this meeting, we’ll discuss things like your budget, goals, dreams, and design preferences.

Detailed Proposal

If we’re a fit, we’ll draft up a website design and development proposal based on the scope of the project. This will include an overview, your goals, current issues, solutions, pricing, and timeline.

Contract

If all looks good with our custom website proposal, we’re ready to get to work! We’ll ask that both parties sign the contract and begin working from the agreed timeline. We cannot wait to start working with you.

2. Content

Sitemap

The proposed site navigation, or sitemap, will be submitted after a thorough audit of your current site and intended goals have been conducted. This sitemap will ensure that the information is organized properly to maximize the user’s experience and navigation flow.

Content

The written content needs to be created or sourced. In many cases, you already have this, but if not we would be happy to refer you to one of our copywriting partners. Regardless, we’ll always advise on content for strong search engine optimization.

Imagry

The imagry for the site can either be provided by the client or us. We generally recommend that the client provide their own photography or hire a photographer. Either way, we are happy to offer stock photography for your project if client-provided photos are not available.

3. Design

Website Mockups

Depending on the scope of the project, a number of page layout options will be created based on our conversations and your design input. These design mockups will be used to further discuss and refine the perfect look and function.

Review

The homepage and interior page mockups are now reviewed. With multiple options to go from, we’ll narrow down which options work best. In most cases, we find a design that works without any further revisions but we are happy to make further modifications to the mockups where necessary.

4. Development

Coding

This is where the real work starts. Your website will be created in our staging environment so your current site remains live. During this process, we will be checking in with you frequently to deliver progress updates and any clarify details.

Populate Content

All content, written text, and imagery will be added to the dev site. This is also where we get another chance to advise on what is still missing. Having strong, relevant content is crucial to a good search engine optimization strategy.

SEO

‘On-page SEO’ refers to industry best practices conducted on each and every site page. This includes proper naming conventions for titles, meta, keywords, alt-tags and more. Proper on-page optimization will greatly help the search rankings of a website.

Mobile

Although every website we create is responsive, it’s still important to consider how the site functions on a mobile device versus a laptop or desktop. Media queries and other CSS/HTML considerations are reviewed so the site looks great on all devices.

Compatibility

Web browser compatability testing ensures that your website looks good on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and more. We test on each browser to ensure that the website renders properly regardless of which browser the user chooses.

Site Review

Once the site is fully developed on our staging server, it’s ready to be revealed. We send a temporary URL to our clients where they can view and discuss the website with their staff. Last minute changes and minor modifications are expected.

5. Launch

Training

Some clients prefer to make changes to the site themselves post launch. We create user accounts for each contributor and train them on how to use their new, awesome site. If training your staff to use WordPress is not needed, we’re happy to make all site changes for you.

Pre-flight

Before sending the site live we always do a pre-flight check to make sure there are no hiccups. In many cases, your current (old) site relies on an outdated hosting plan that is no longer needed. We’ll make sure everything is transferred over properly so nothing gets lost.

Launch

Once the site is approved, we’ll begin the process of going live. This process generally takes about 24-hours but we’ll always advise on the best launch date depending on each project.

Absolutely. We specialize in the custom development and integrations. Below are a few general categories of integrations and develoipment that may be used for your project.

Web Development

We’re great at creating custom web solutions. Since the needs of every business are different, we offer custom solutions that will help your employees and clients alike. From submitting resumes online to creating landing pages for digital advertising campaigns.

100% Owner

You own your website, domain name, written content and images. Some web companies provide a lease model, where you rent the site and its contents as long as you are a client with them. With us, you own it all.

Edits & Updates

As part of your hosting and maintenance plan, we make backend updates and site changes for you. Trade out team members, add services, office locations, and images anytime. This is not only encouraged, it allows your website to stay secure and up to date.

Integrations

We integrate third-party software into your website where needed. This may include CRM applications like booking software, PayPal, or a messaging platform. We’ve worked with numerous API integrations to help your business run as smoothly as possible.

Forms

Custom forms will allow visitors to submit information on your site. This includes the ability to submit their email address, phone number or even attach a file, submit a resume or calculate a shipping rate based on a zip code.

Social Media

Your social media accounts will be integrated into your website. Widgets and available plugins can also display most recent posts, or allow viewers to like your page directly from the website.

Blog/news feed

A blog or news feed may be added to your site. This can be a brand new platform we create or an existing host of articles and posts you already have. Either way, having an area to update viewers on company news, services and products is always a plus.

You bet we do. If you do not have the resources to generate your own site content we are happy to help. Here are a few ways we can assist you in site content.

Copywriting

Don’t have a writer on staff? If this is not the case, we provide professional copywriting services for your business. This includes topic research to deliver a search engine optimized length copy for any project, campaign or website.

Press Releases

Press releases can make the difference between being found and being forgotten. As a leader in your field, it is encouraged to establish yourself as an authoritative resource for your given topics of search.

Licenced Photos

The photos we provide are licensed and legal to use in print and online applications. Far too often we’ve had clients place unlicensed photography on their site only to be sent a cease and desist letter or bill for the copywritten material.

We handle all the technical aspects of keeping your website online. Below are the technical details explained in greater depth.

Managed WordPress

We manage the entire front and backend of the website for you. Security, updates, backups, site changes and support are all included with our hosting & maintenance plan. This allows you to focus on your business while we worry about the other stuff.

Hosting Environment

A site needs to be hosted in an appropriate environment for speed and security. We provide and offer the proper hosting plan for you so you don’t have to think about it. We also work with alternative hosting providers if you prefer to use a different service.

Security

Making sure your website is secure is a top priority. A secure socket license (SSL or https://) and proactive security measures are set in place to keep your website safe and information secure.

Backups

A site backup is made every day so nothing gets lost. Every 24 hours we’ll have a perfect copy that can be rolled back at a moments notice for any reason. All this is included in your customized hosting & maintenance plan with us.

Forwards

Forwarding domain names to an existing one may be needed for your business. This means all traffic from one domain is transferred to the other. Whether you’re adding a domain name or simply changing the primary domain, we’ll advise and manage this process for you.

Site Changes

We make all site changes for you or create user profiles so you can change the site yourself. Either way, we’re happy to assist in adding team members, service offerings or images. We’re also happy to teach you how to do this yourself.

Service Plan

Our service plans are customized to the needs of your business. Some businesses want to manage everything after the site is built. Others want us to handle all this for them. We’ll create a custom service plan that fits the needs of your particular site.

Customer First

We’re here for you, seriously. Since our clients mean the world to us, we prefer that they rely on our expertise frequently whenever necessary. We provide the best service to a manageable number of clients while never sacrificing quality.