You’ve decided you’re going to hire a website designer to customize your website. That designer is going to take it to the next level like you couldn’t do on your own. So you can start booking more of your ideal clients. That’s great! You’ve handed over your passwords and you think your part is done… right?! Not so fast grasshopper.

Hiring a website designer to create a new website for you isn’t like hiring a mechanic. You can’t just drop your passwords through the key slot and come back a few days later to a finished website. You will need to work with your website designer to create a website that is going to guide your ideal clients through a process from greeting to sale.

Your website designer isn’t a copywriter.

I’m going to say this again for the people in the back row. Your website designer is not a copywriter. Yes, they will probably make suggestions on how to improve your headings or tags if needed but your designer will not write your content. That is what you hire a copywriter for.

Why does your website designer need content before they start work on your website?

Imagine someone asked you to build a house. They ask you to start building the house but they haven’t given you the basic information like: How many people will live in the house? How many bedrooms do they need? How many bathrooms they need. Do they need a single or double car garage? Do they want a big kitchen or an open plan living/dining area? My point is you can’t start working on building the house without knowing this important information to help frame the house. If you do, you run the risk of needing to start over again when you realize you built a 3 bedroom home for a family of 10. (You get my point).

Your website designer needs to see what content you have. How much content there is. How you’ve organized it. This is important information when designing a new website, or customizing a Showit website template. Your website is designed and customized around the content that you have. If there is more or less content than they have been designing for. They will need to change the design to fit the content, creating way more work than necessary if they started before they got your final content.

What you need to start your website project.

Here is a checklist for things you’ll need to provide your website designer at the start of the project. Having this all ready to go when you hire your designer will help get your project started faster.

1. Pick a platform & setup your account. I like working with Showit, because it’s super easy to customize for more creative and unique designs.
2. Organize your brand board. If you’re not working with a brand designer to create a new brand for you, then make sure you have your brand board with your colours, fonts, and brand rules ready for your website designer.
3. Organize your photos. Upload your photos into your Showit media library. Pick general photos for your website and then start curating your portfolio. It’s also a good time to update your personal brand photos.
4. Create your content. Create a wireframe for your website (a wireframe is an outline of the pages you want on your website and the content that will go on those pages. Like a road map for your website). Then create a word document with your content. (You may like this blog post on how to write website content).
   ** I create custom content documents for my clients based on the template they have chosen for their Showit website. The content document has prompts for what you should write where on your website. It’s a great starting point. You can ask your designer if they have something like this as part of their service package.
5. Search Engine Optimization. Have your keywords, meta titles & descriptions written to be implemented in your website. If you need help with this talk to your designer if this is a service they offer. If not check out the SEO Kickstart Guide.

You’re not ready to hand over all the things to have your website designer build the website of your dreams. If you have any questions about customizing your Showit website template please feel free to reach out to me. Get more great website, business strategy tips & special offers right in your inbox, use the link below to be a part of the VIP list!