FULL web design process [STEP-BY-STEP]
Summary
TLDRThe video script outlines a web designer's process for significantly increasing income by streamlining client work and focusing on strategy over aesthetics. It dispels common myths about web design, emphasizes the value of templates, and highlights the importance of understanding clients' needs. The script details the use of AI to enhance workflow efficiency and introduces tools like Framer, Figma, Notion, and Chat GPT. It provides a timeline for project completion, from research and strategy meetings to design and content implementation, and offers templates for various stages of the process to save time and ensure consistency in delivering high-quality websites.
Takeaways
- 🚀 Streamlining the web design process can significantly increase a designer's income while reducing the time spent on client work.
- 🔧 Using AI and templates doesn't diminish a designer's value; it's the strategic thinking behind a website that clients pay for.
- 💼 Designers should focus on delivering custom solutions in strategy, aesthetics, and messaging rather than starting from scratch every time.
- 📋 Myth-busting: Using templates does not disqualify one from being a designer, and knowing how to code is not a prerequisite for landing clients.
- 🛠️ Framer is recommended as a powerful tool for web designers due to its speed and structure, offering a better workflow than other platforms.
- 📈 A well-structured web design process includes research, strategy meetings, design phases, and client communication throughout the project.
- 📝 The brand questionnaire and Chat GPT scripts are useful for generating ideas and streamlining the strategy development.
- 🎨 Visual direction is crucial; understanding the client's preferences and market research helps in creating a unique brand presence.
- 🔍 Competitor analysis is essential to identify opportunities for the client's business to stand out in the industry.
- 📊 Aligning the website with the client's marketing strategy is vital for driving traffic and conversions.
- 📚 Templates for website content and copy can make the content gathering process more efficient for both the designer and the client.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the web design process shared in the video?
-The main focus of the web design process shared in the video is on the strategy behind a website, which is what clients are paying for, rather than just the aesthetic design elements.
What are the two myths about web design that the speaker wants to debunk?
-The two myths are: 1) Using templates means you can't call yourself a designer, and 2) You need to know how to code to land clients as a web designer.
What is the significance of templates in the web design process?
-Templates are significant because they allow designers to solve problems more efficiently by reusing solutions that work for multiple clients, thus delivering more value and saving time for custom solutions.
Why does the speaker choose to use no-code builders like Framer and Figma?
-The speaker chooses to use no-code builders like Framer and Figma because they make the workflow quicker, simplify the design process, and make client lives easier, focusing on delivering a functional and visually appealing website without needing to code from scratch.
How does the speaker use AI to speed up the workflow?
-The speaker uses AI, specifically Chat GPT, to help generate ideas and get the creative process flowing, especially during the research and strategy phase of the web design process.
What is the recommended timeline for the web design projects according to the speaker?
-The recommended timeline includes research, a strategy meeting, approval of the strategy, design in two phases (homepage first, then the entire website), and implementation. The exact duration varies based on project size and experience.
What are the key components of the speaker's website strategy?
-The key components of the speaker's website strategy include brand messaging, competitor analysis, marketing strategy, and website strategy and design direction.
How does the speaker ensure that the client's messaging is clear and consistent?
-The speaker ensures clear and consistent messaging by creating a brand story script, discussing it with the client during the strategy meeting, and agreeing on the key messaging points to be used throughout the client's marketing and website.
What is the role of the brand questionnaire in the web design process?
-The brand questionnaire helps gather crucial information from the client before the strategy meeting, allowing the designer to conduct preliminary research and come prepared with ideas for the strategy discussion.
How does the speaker approach competitor analysis in web design?
-The speaker approaches competitor analysis by identifying the key competitors, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, and using this information to find opportunities to set the client's business apart in the industry.
What is the importance of understanding the client's marketing strategy in web design?
-Understanding the client's marketing strategy is important because an effective website must work in combination with their marketing efforts to drive traffic and conversions. It helps in guiding the website's design and content to align with the client's overall marketing goals.
Outlines
🚀 Streamlining Web Design for Increased Income
The speaker introduces a web design process that has significantly increased their income while reducing the time spent on client work to just one day a week. They dispel two common myths: that using templates devalues a designer's work and that a designer must know how to code to be successful. The speaker emphasizes the importance of strategy in web design and shares their process, including the tools they use, such as Framer, Figma, Notion, and Chat GPT, to enhance their workflow.
📝 Crafting Effective Web Design Strategies
The speaker discusses the importance of spending time on strategy to save time later in the project. They outline the components of their web design strategy, which includes brand messaging, competitor analysis, marketing strategy, and design direction. The speaker uses a brand questionnaire filled out by the client and Chat GPT to generate ideas, which are then refined during a strategy meeting with the client. The goal is to establish clear messaging and a visual direction that sets the client's brand apart.
🤝 Collaborating with Clients on Content and Strategy
The speaker explains the process of collaborating with clients to gather website content and finalize the website strategy. They provide templates for website copy and explain how to use them to streamline the content gathering process. The speaker also discusses the importance of understanding the client's marketing strategy to ensure the website design aligns with their goals and effectively guides users through the buying journey.
🎨 Designing Websites Efficiently with Framer
The speaker demonstrates how to use Framer to design and build websites efficiently. They explain the benefits of using components and site styles to maintain consistency and speed up the design process. The speaker walks through their workflow, from creating pages based on the sitemap to changing site styles and populating the sections with content. They highlight how Framer's flexibility allows for quick design changes and the creation of unique websites in a short amount of time.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Web Design Process
💡AI in Web Design
💡Templates
💡No-Code Builders
💡Strategy
💡Client Collaboration
💡Efficiency
💡Framer
💡Brand Questionnaire
💡Visual Direction
💡Marketing Strategy
Highlights
The speaker shares a web design process that has increased their income tenfold while reducing client work to just one day a week.
The process does not rely on AI to do the entire job, but uses AI to speed up the workflow.
The value of a web designer lies in the strategy behind a website, not just its aesthetics.
Templates are used to solve the same problem for multiple clients, streamlining the design process.
Knowing how to code is not a requirement for landing clients; the focus should be on delivering a functional and visually appealing website quickly.
Framer is recommended as a no-code platform for web designers, offering a quick workflow and better structure for responsive design.
Figma is used to create a strategy PDF for client presentations, while Notion is used for business management and organizing checklists and templates.
Chat GPT is utilized to speed up the research and ideation process for web design strategy.
The web design process includes research, strategy meetings, design phases, and a timeline that varies based on project size and experience.
A brand questionnaire is used to gather information from clients before strategy meetings, allowing for more effective discussions.
Crafting effective prompts for AI is essential to generate useful content, as AI itself is too generic without guidance.
The brand messaging strategy involves understanding sales psychology, copywriting, and storytelling to connect with the audience.
Competitor analysis helps identify opportunities to set the client's business apart in the industry.
Visual direction is crucial to ensure a cohesive brand presence and to elevate the client's brand above competitors.
The marketing strategy should be aligned with the website design to ensure traffic and conversions.
A sitemap is essential to plan the website structure and content sections, helping to avoid revisions and streamline the design process.
Website copy templates and content planning are used to make the content creation process more efficient for both the designer and the client.
Framer's component and site styles features allow for quick design changes and consistency across the entire website.
The speaker provides a comprehensive toolkit and templates for web designers to follow their process and increase their income potential.
Transcripts
in this video I'm going to be sharing
with you the web design process that has
allowed me to 10x my income all while
streamlining my actual client work down
to just one day a week this is not a
hack video I won't be showing you how to
click one button and have ai do your
entire job for you we will be using some
AI to speed up our workflow but if
anyone can generate a pretty nice
looking website in one click then this
means that your value as a web designer
is in the strategy behind a website this
is what clients are paying you for and
this is what I'm going to show you how
to deliver in this video I'm going to be
sharing my entire process with you
holding nothing back all the templates
that I'm using in this video are
available below so if you want you can
get these to save some time implementing
everything you're going to learn here
but otherwise by the end of this video
you're going to be able to copy and
paste my process to have everything you
need to start delivering a $10,000
website tomorrow so before we jump in
there are two myths that I hear a lot of
my comments that I want to put an end to
right now myth number one is that if you
are using templates then you can't call
yourself a designer a lot of people
think that to deliver value as a
designer everything has to be 100%
customer and you have to start
completely from scratch on every single
project this is wrong design is about
solving a problem and so if you solve
this problem for one person then it
makes sense to take that solution and
reuse it to help more people solve this
same problem and of course there's going
to be certain Aesthetics and messaging
that you want to be customed to each and
every client but the truth is that
there's a simple formula that works and
stays the same for every High converting
website and so you want to create
templates as much as possible around the
things that stay the same for every
single project and what this allows you
to do is deliver more and more value to
your client you have more time to spend
going above and beyond to deliver custom
Solutions when it comes to the strategy
the Aesthetics and the messaging because
you're not wasting time building out the
same pages and features from scratch
every single time and so myth number two
is that you need to know how to code to
land clients as a web designer all
clients care about is is it going to
make me money is it functional does it
work and look great and how quickly can
you deliver it they do not care how you
get there so it's your job to choose the
best tools for the job that are going to
make yours and your clients lives easier
which is why even though I know how to
code I choose to use no code Builders
instead that make my workflow quicker
and my client lies easier too so with
that being said let me go through the
tools that I'm going to be using so for
the website build we're going to be
using framer this platform is honestly
the best thing to happen to me as a web
designer I recently switched over to
framer and it has made my workflow 10
times quicker and you'll see why by the
end of this video if you're a designer
that's used to working in figma then
this is going to feel very familiar to
you the layout is very similar and it
functions on the same free form canvas
which gives you complete design Freedom
so whereas before my design process
would be to mock up the website in figma
first before actually building the
website in another platform now you can
skip this step and design and publish
the website within this one platform and
unlike other Dragon drop platforms that
are more designer friendly like show it
for example frer actually has much
better structure and responsive design
that creates a more robust website which
is why I know a lot of web design
agencies are also making the switch from
webflow to framer so we're also going to
be using figma to put together the
strategy PDF to present to the client
next up is notion this is where I manage
my entire business and so you'll see a
lot of the checklist list and templates
organized in here and of course we're
going to be using chat GPT to speed up
our workflow so to give you a quick
overview of the entire web design
process this is the timeline that I use
for most of the projects that I work on
and this is the best way that I found to
break up the design process to give me
time to get everything I need from the
client and also minimize revisions by
making sure I'm on the same page as the
client throughout the entire project so
I'll carry out some research and then
we'll have our strategy meeting the
strategy then needs to be approved
before we get to designing and then I'll
break up the design into two phases
first the homepage design and then the
entire website and of course this
timeline is going to vary depending on
the type and size of the project and how
quickly you can Implement each stage and
this is going to come with experience so
you'll want to give yourself more time
and be patient with yourself if you're
just starting out but a big part of the
reason that I'm able to deliver this so
quickly are the templates that I use to
streamline this process which is what
I'm going to be sharing with you in this
video so at the start of any project you
want to spend a lot of time on the
strategy this is key to saving time in
your projects later on down the line
making sure that both you and your
client are on the same page before you
do do anything else makes the rest of
the project a breeze and it will help
you avoid hundreds of revisions later on
down the line it's also how you create a
website that effective for your client's
business and actually makes them money
which increases your value and allows
you to charge more so in my website
strategy I include brand messaging
competitor analysis marketing strategy
website strategy and design Direction so
every project starts off with a call to
ask a lot of clarifying questions and
agree this strategy together with the
client but to make the most of this
meeting you want to do as much research
and preparation as possible before this
which is why I get my clients to fill in
this brand questionnaire at least one
week before the call which will give you
the information you need to start your
research this is a strategy template I
have set up in figma and before the
meeting I will go in and start adding my
notes to make this part easy we're going
to use chat GPT to help us get the ideas
flowing so here I have some prompts
already set up for each stage of this
process the thing with AI is that it can
be extremely generic so for it to be
effective you're going to have to learn
how to craft expert prompts that are
going to generate exactly what you're
looking for cuz the truth is you're not
going to be replaced by AI but if you
don't learn how to make it work for you
then you are going to be replaced by
someone using Ai and so it's worth
spending the time to put together prompt
scripts like this to help you with your
research I won't go through all the
prompts that I have set up but they are
included in the template bundle below
and so once you take the information
that you have from the brand
questionnaire and run it through chat
GPT you're going to have a great
starting point but you still need to
know how to take that information and
use it to put together your strategy and
the goal here is not to put together a
perfect strategy because so far you've
only had one conversation with your
client and got some answers on a
questionnaire so the likelihood is
there's going to be nuances about your
client's business and Their audience
that you haven't fully understood yet
but turning up to the meeting with these
ideas is going to give your client an
opportunity to clarify things and really
get on the same page with this messaging
so that by the end of the meeting they
have a really clear idea of what you're
trying to do and you've agreed the
strategy going forward so the first step
is your brand messaging any website is
90% psychology and 10% design and so a
huge part of your job is understand
sales psychology copywriting and brand
storytelling to help your client put
together this messaging so the method
that I use with all my clients is to put
together this brand story script and
this is from the book building a story
brand I went through how to put this
together for yourself in this video here
and the process is exactly the same for
your client and so if you haven't
already go back and watch this to get a
more in-depth look at what a brand story
script is and how to use it but
essentially this is all about crafting a
story for your brand or your offer in
order to connect with your customers and
get them ready to buy from you and to do
this we need a really good idea of who
the audience are and what problems we're
solving for them and so once you've
clarified this and have run these
through chat GPT to get some ideas
flowing you'll be able to come in here
and start filling this out for example
these are the key messaging points from
your story script don't copy and paste
everything from chat GPT into here just
grab bullet points and ideas because
you're then going to go through this
with the client and they're going to be
able to add to this ideally they know
what key problems Their audience are
struggling with and what messaging works
better than anyone so going into our
meeting my notes might look like this
and then when I go over this with my
client they can see where I'm trying to
go with this so they might add a couple
of extra points or tell me that these
points here aren't really relevant to
their clients and then after this
meeting you can take this and write it
up and the purpose of doing this and
putting it in this document here is that
it gives your client clear messaging
that they can use throughout their
marketing and their website and they can
then share this with their team or
anyone else they're working with so the
next step is competitor analysis so in
your questionnaire you've asked for info
about their key competitors and you can
also do your own research here too
because a lot of the time ESP especially
if it's a smaller business that's coming
to you they might identify their
competitors as other smaller businesses
like theirs because they think that
those are the people that are on the
same level as them but the reality is
that as a small business your key
competitors are usually the big dogs in
your industry these are the people that
your customers are actually comparing
you to and so it's your job to help your
customer Elevate their brand presence to
position themselves alongside these
industry leaders so once you've
identified who these people are you want
to analyze how they set themselves apart
what they do well and what are their
weaknesses and this is going to help you
identify the key opportunities that you
have to establish your client's business
and set them apart in the industry which
is what's going to help you put together
your creative Direction now I know some
people like to offer brand on web
designs as a package deal or you might
prefer to only work with clients that
already have their branding sorted
either is fine but regardless of how
involved you are in the visual branding
you still want to put together this
visual direction to make sure you and
your clients share the same vision
before you get to designing so in your
questionnaire you've asked some
questions about their visual preferences
and so now it's your job to take your
client's vision any existing assets and
then combine this with your market
research to come up with a visual
direction that will really set them
apart and Elevate their brand presence
and so you can use this mood board here
to show how the photography style colors
and fonts are all going to work together
as a web designer you're going to want
to get really good at sourcing stock
photography because clients almost
always need help with this and this will
really make or break your designs and so
I've left a free notion workbook below
and in this I have my web designer
toolkit with all the sites that I
recommend for design inspiration and
stock photog photography then on these
next pages I like to create mockups of
some website features and references
that I'm drawing inspiration from this
is really helpful to agree the design
Style with your client before you start
applying this to the entire website
design and this is how you avoid huge
revisions later on down the line then
the next step is to take a look at their
marketing strategy in this questionnaire
you ask them about their marketing and
this is important because an exceptional
website that makes clients a lot of
money has to work in combination with
their marketing a website without
traffic is completely useless and so you
need to understand how your client is
planning on getting people onto their
website and what stage in the customer
Journey this person is at give you an
example a location-based business like a
contractor with no budget or plan to use
paid ads is going to get the majority of
their business from organic searches
within their local area so if they're
planning on getting their traffic from
Google a huge part of their website
strategy is going to be centered on SEO
this is going to be about creating blogs
that answer questions that people are
typing into Google and are relevant or
even just related to their services and
then these blogs will then need to
nurture and build trust with their
audience and guide them to the rest of
their website where they have their
services and their call to action but
for me as a web designer I'm focusing
all my marketing efforts on my organic
content I'm not location based and
there's a ton of competition when it
comes to ranking for web design on
Google so I might want the capability to
add a Blog later on but spending too
much time and energy on an SEO strategy
right now is not my priority and so the
focus of my website is going to be on
high converting sales pages with
qualified traffic coming straight from
my social media this audience already
know about me and my offer a lot of the
nurturing and the trust building has
already been done when they come on to
this sales page and so this is just
about keeping them on this page and
getting them to take action and so
hopefully you can start to see how your
website works in combination with your
marketing and So based on their current
marketing plan you want to analyze your
audience's level of awareness when
they're coming onto the website and how
your website is going to guide them
through this buying Journey this here is
what's going to help you put together
your website strategy so when it comes
to your website you have your clients
goalss and you have your user goals and
the website strategy sits in the middle
of this it has to satisfy the needs and
the questions of your users when they
come onto here and then effectively
guide them towards the action that you
want them to take so we want to keep
this in mind when we're putting together
our sitemap this is going to lay out all
the different pages and all of the
content sections on these Pages now
there are a number of basic sections
that make up any website and once you
learn these it becomes very easy to plan
this and piece this all together so
within this template bundle below I
created a cheat sheet of all the key
sections that make up a converting
website with some different examples of
how you can order them on different
website Pages laying it all out like
this is going to help you see how
everything works together and check with
your client if there's anything missing
it's also going to help you with the
next step which is getting your website
content so after your strategy meeting
you finish this PDF send it over to the
client and they've approved this the
only thing left before jumping into
designing is getting the website content
and for most web designers this is the
most painful part that can really drag
out a project timeline so to stop this
happening these are the templates that I
use to make the this as painless as
possible for both you and your client So
within here I have these website copy
templates there's a services and an
e-commerce version depending on the type
of client and then Within These there
are guides on how to fill this in and
then each page is broken down into the
key sections with copy prompts and
examples these are also going to help
you get everything you need for SEO
website policies product pages contact
form and so on in our sitemap we've
already planned out our pages and laid
out these sections and these templates
are going to help us fill all this in
and so what you want to do is check
these templates against your sitemap to
make sure that there isn't any
additional content that you need for
these Pages then once you've done that
there are two ways you can use these
with your clients if you are not
including copywriting as part of your
project then you can just give this to
the client and they can fill this in
themselves this is what I'll do
especially if it's a shorter project or
a lower budget client this enables the
client to do this part themselves and it
breaks it up so it's easy to manage and
your client knows exactly what you need
and if they're working with a copywriter
then often they want an outline like
this so they know the strategy and the
intention behind in the content but if
you're including copyrighting in your
project which I recommend then I would
use this template to get everything you
need from your client again before your
strategy meeting go in and make some
notes in here basically to make sure
that you know what questions you need to
ask your client to fill in any of the
gaps then you can fill this in as much
as possible from the messaging that
you've agreed in your strategy session
once you've done this you can give it to
the client to fill in any gaps and
approve the messaging that you've
written up make sure to let them know
that it doesn't need to be perfect just
add their notes in here and then you
will help them write it out properly
it's up to you what works best for you
and your clients but either way having
these templates ready to go is going to
make this so much easier and quicker so
you can actually get what you need to
start designing the website okay now is
the fun part you've been waiting for
most designers will be itching to jump
straight into this from the start but
all the hard work that you put into the
strategy and the website content is
about to pay off the hard part is done
and now you have as much freedom to be
as creative as you like and if you've
already set up your website platform
with the right structure and templates
ready to go then this part is really
easy the last thing you want to do is
start from a complete Blank Slate there
are certain things that are going to be
the same for every single website
builder and so as much as possible you
want to set these things up once and
then reuse this for every client which
is why I recommend sticking with just
one website platform because you can
have all this set up and really
streamline your workflow so let me show
you how I have my website template set
up as I mentioned before we're using
framer here so you can design straight
into the platform and when you're done
all you need is to hit publish So within
framer I already have the essential
sections needed for every website laid
out these are the same SE that we broke
down in our website copy templates and
that we planned out on our s map and so
the key to a really fast workflow is
utilizing components and site Styles
these are two things that a lot of
website platforms have but framer has
the most userfriendly setup that I've
seen from a design perspective so each
of these sections are set up as
components and what this means is that
when you make changes to one of these it
will also change this section wherever
you use it throughout your design so the
most obvious things to use this for are
your buttons your navigation bar and
your footer but a lot of the content
sections will repeat on different pages
too and so having these all set up as
components means that you can quickly
make design changes that Implement on
every page at once all of these sections
also use site Styles so that when you
change your site color palette and fonts
here these will change throughout the
entire website too so what this means is
that if you design everything in the
right order then you can very quickly
design and build an entire website in
very little time so let me demonstrate
when I sit down to build a website I
will always work for from a checklist
here and so Step One is using the sit
map create all your pages and put these
sections in the right order step two is
to change the site styles to set the
colors and the fonts step three you want
to make your way through these sections
here starting with the global assets
like buttons navigation bar and footer
changing the style of these to match the
visual direction from the strategy PDF
and create a unique visual identity step
four now it's time to copy in the
website content and design each of these
sections starting with the homepage page
you can see as I change all of these the
other Pages start to fill out as well
where we're reusing the content sections
throughout the website if there are
sections that will have different
content on them on different pages then
you can separate these from their main
component for example you might want to
show different testimonials on your
sales page to your homepage and so you
would change the design of the
testimonial section on the homepage
first and then on the sales page you can
select detach instance and it will let
you change the testimonials here without
making changes to the rest of these
sections and so you can see that by
doing it in this order you're able to
very quickly Implement a consistent
design across the entire website and
because of how flexible the design is in
framer compared to other platforms you
can create a completely unique website
in just a few hours and so this is why
framer is an absolute GameChanger for
web designers this is the smoothest and
quickest workflow I have ever had if you
want to use this setup for yourself then
you can get this exact framer template
below with all the checklists that I use
for Designing and launching a website
all the other templates you've seen in
this video are also included the brand
questionnaire chat GPT scripts strategy
PDF and website copy templates and so
you can take all of this and literally
copy and paste my business to start
delivering websites like this to your
clients tomorrow but otherwise even if
you're not working in framer I really
recommend taking the time to set up the
processes you've seen in this video in
your desired platform because this
really is the key to how I was able to
10x my income while working less than I
ever have before after watching this
video you have the knowledge to go away
and deliver a website tomorrow and if
you've watched the other videos in this
series you also have everything you need
to start attracting clients that are
willing to pay this so if you haven't
already done so make sure to go back and
watch these videos and if you've made it
all the way through this series thank
you for being here I truly appreciate
all the love and drop me a comment below
with what you'd like to see next on this
channel
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