Website Design Agency | Raleigh, NC

Our Web Design Process

At Capstone, we never employ a one-size-fits-all approach to designing a new website. After all, no two businesses are alike – so no two websites should be, either. Still, to ensure the best possible outcome, we've developed a proven, effective new website design process:

1. Discovery Phase

In order to lay the foundation for effective web design, we kick-start the process by getting to know your business, including everything you'd like to achieve with your new site. We determine what is best to accomplish your business goals. What are you short and long-term goals? What kind of functionality will help you achieve them? What are your branding requirements? Who is your target audience?
Once we have the basics down, we'll determine the functional requirements of your new site. Everyone is assigned a specific role, including members of our team and yours, to ensure the utmost efficiency and to keep confusion at bay. We'll look at competitors' websites, too, and use what we find to develop a site that outshines them.
2. Sitemap and Wireframe Development

Taking what we've learned during discovery, we'll come up with the basic concept for your new site. The first step is typically to develop the content architecture and navigation scheme for your site. Where will everything go? How will it flow? By addressing these points first, we can ensure an intuitive, functional site.
Next, we'll determine the overall structure of your new site. The homepage is crucial, of course, but the inner pages matter too. Every single page should have a purpose, and they should all interconnect in a logical and useful way.
Finally, we'll develop wireframes to give you an idea of where content will appear on the site. These are essentially mockups including placeholders, or containers, for the content that will appear on various pages of your site. This allows us to design the site around the useful information that will attract people to it in the first place.
3. Coding and Programming

As you can see, before a single line of code is written, you'll have a clear idea of how your new site will look and function upon completion. Of course, developing wireframes, sitemaps and other concepts is the "easy" part. The real work begins with the coding and programming. As long as it's done properly, this step will ensure that your site functions properly across all platforms, including desktop computers, smartphones and tablets.
During the coding and programming phase, we'll use core technologies like CSS, HTML5, PHP and JavaScript to develop the architecture, or backbone, of your website. From there, we'll integrate the code and design into a CMS like WordPress, ExpressionEngine or Craft, so you can easily update and maintain it later. Depending on your requirements, we'll also develop custom functionality that brings your vision to life.
The final and most important aspect of this phase is testing and debugging the code. We take this step seriously and will work tirelessly to ensure that every aspect of your site functions properly.
4. Site Launch and Maintenance

After thoroughly testing and debugging your new website, it will be ready for its debut. Launching a new site is exciting, but it's not unusual for small issues to crop up along the way. We will launch your site on your server or on the hosting provider of your choice. We don't just launch the site and call it good. Instead, we test it some more to ensure that it's a worthy representation of your business and goals.
Once your site is live, we'll show you how to use the content management system, or CMS, to keep it updated and relevant. If there are plugins or add-ons you'd like to use, we will install them for you to ensure they look and function properly. By the time this step is complete, you should feel confident in your ability to keep your site updated with new, fresh, engaging content from one day to the next.
5. Marketing and Driving Traffic

Developing a new site is merely the first step. Unfortunately, traffic won't start streaming in automatically. For that to happen, effective marketing is a must. You'll be extra glad you teamed up with Capstone because we can handle that end of things too. Our goal is to drive targeted customers to your website, not just increase traffic numbers.
Through effective search engine optimization, or SEO, and social media marketing, we'll ensure that viable prospects find your site with ease. Because we designed and developed your site with these strategies in mind, they'll be all the more effective. As the SEO and social media landscape change, as they inevitably do, we may adapt our strategies accordingly to keep your site in front of the most relevant prospects.

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Our Web Design Process

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