process
Discovery
Discovery
During our introductory chat, we ask you about your business, branding, vision and goals. Whether you come to us with a blank canvas, or have a very specific style in mind, we will work with you to formulate a plan that suits your needs.
Then we will put together a proposal for your project. This proposal will include a scope of work outline, a budget and an actionable timeline. It will tie together everything we have learned up to this point. If any proposal changes are required, we will make them before completing this phase. When you are content to proceed we move forward with a strong creative vision for your project.
Strategy
Strategy
This is when we outline our project plan in detail. We collect all required assets and draw up a detailed timeline for when milestones will be met. Our clear channels of communication are established and the necessary meetings scheduled.
This is also the point in the process where we plan the entire site. We will discuss your vision, brand identity & content strategy in detail. Should you require website copy or other content, this is when we create and/or collate it. We will also create a site plan and if required an SEO strategy.
Upon completion of this stage, your new website architecture will be fully blueprinted and all content readied for the design stage.
Design
Design
Once your content, information architecture & vision is established, we start the process of creating your wireframes. We construct each page for you to review, revise and approve.
At the end of this stage your site will be fully designed in Figma and ready for development.
Development
Development
This is when we bring your designs to life and flesh them out with engaging interactions and any custom development that may be required. We provide you with a password-protected link so you can view the process at every stage of development.
Once the development is complete, we conduct extensive testing to ensure excellent performance across a range of screens and devices.
At the completion of this stage you will have a brand new, fully functional, beautifully designed website.
Launch
Launch!
Your new website is ready, congratulations!
At Lionize we are always available for any clarification, site maintenance or additional onboarding you might require for your new site.
FAQ
new projects
The first step is to fill in our contact form and we will get in touch to schedule a discovery call with you to see if we're a fit for your project. We will ask you a number of questions in order to put together a budgeted proposal for you. Throughout the process we are always available for any questions or clarifications.
During our initial discovery call we will ask you about:
- Your project goals - why you need a new / improved website?
- How far along in the planning process are you? Do you need design or just development?
- What are your style preferences? Tone?
- How many unique page layouts will you require?
- Do you need animations?
- How complex do you require the interactions to be?
- Are there third-party tools or integrations you need on the site?
- Who is the appointed decision-maker for this project and are they available for weekly or biweekly checkins?
- Do you need a CMS (content management system)?
- Will you require graphic design / illustration services?
We will ask and learn about all your project goals, preferences and ideas, then we will get back to you with a budgeted line-item proposal specific to your project.
At the point of enquiry we will let you know when we are available to start work on your site. We try our best to keep our waiting list to under 2 weeks whenever possible and sometimes we can start work the very same day, but we will let you know when you enquire.
This really depends on the project. A small microsite on a fast order package takes 2 weeks if all the assets are delivered promptly. A large complex site with integrations, animations, complex interactions and a large CMS could take over 4 months. For a "regular" business site with a slick landing page and no CMS the average timeline is between 4-12 weeks. Again though, once we engage with the Discovery phase of our process, we are then in a position to accurately determine the project timeline.
design
We do. At the end of the day, this is your project, your vision, your business. We are happy to follow your design guidance 100% If you already have design files, we can implement and develop them pixel perfectly.
As part of our Discovery phase, we will do extensive research into your aesthetic likes, dislikes and ambivalences. There are a number of ways we go about drilling down and discovering the "look" and "feel" for your website. We research your business, we research your competition, we look at your sphere of influence in general and we use our knowledge of what styles tend to work best for your industry. We also use a number of collaborative mood-boarding tools, so by the time we're ready for the strategy phase, we will have an excellent idea of the aesthetic we're running with, and so will you.
Yes we do. We have a number of talented graphic designers in our talent pool, and we are happy to integrate original designs as part of our builds.
Yes we do, our animators are happy to create unique and engaging animations to enhance the user experience of your new website.
Our process is collaborative at every stage. Our clients are regularly updated on design progress and aesthetic choices via an open Figma workspace that they have access to. If our designers take a route you don't like, this is caught at the earliest possible stage and your comments and change requests are immediately implemented.
Yes we do. All our clients are trained via a series of videos and in-person zoom training. We teach you how to use the Webflow editor and designer tools.
Yes we offer these as extras and one of our graphic designers would be happy to help.
development
There are multiple hosting options, but we usually recommend that our clients avail of Webflow hosting. The first step is to sign up for a "Starter" Webflow account which is free unless you need to manage more than one site. Then it's easy to add a Webflow site plan to your new site. The site plans we recommend for most clients are either the CMS plan which is $16 per month or the Business plan which is $36 per month.
We are also available to manage this set up for all clients.
We offer SEO strategy creation, ongoing SEO management and SEO consultations. Talk to us for more information on all of these.
The beauty of Webflow and the sites that we create for clients is that they are 1) Secure 2) Do not require updates 3) Easy to maintain. So in a nutshell, no you do not need to hire us to maintain it, but you can if you want to. For clients who wish to delegate, we do offer site maintenance plans. Talk to us for more information on these.
Absolutely, we currently use Memberstack.io, but Webflow is bringing out a native solution soon and we are excited to see how it compares.
We optimize images, videos and all other content as well as minimising all site files to ensure the absolute fastest possible load times. We can generally improve your site load times.
We are well versed in site migration. We follow best practices and implement all correct 301 redirects to minimise any potential impact on SEO. With SEO strategies and a clever redesign we can even create SEO gains for your site after launch.
We can offer advanced front-end training for teams. Talk to us for more information.
general
We use Figma for design and UX work. We develop in Webflow with some custom code worked on in Visual Studio first for testing. We use Loom to update our clients & for video training and we use Slack for communication.
We ask for a 50% starting fee and the remaining 50% is paid in full when you are happy with your new website, and just before we transfer ownership.
Lionize has created a series of videos to walk our clients through managing and updating their new website. We promise the learning curve is not steep and making site updates will be a breeze. Nevertheless, if there is any aspect of the new setup that you need clarification on, we are here to help.
Yes, we offer a range of written content packages for blogs, as well as video, photographic and other written content.
We will deliver a fully functional site, but if something unexpected crops up we are available to help.