Step 1: Purpose
Decide the purpose of the website. Knowing the purpose of the website will help make future decisions and steps much easier. That purpose should be condensed down to one simple sentence. For instance, TowerQ's website purpose is "Make it easy for people to create a website."
Having a definite purpose makes it easy to decide if something should be added to a website. If it doesn't help achieve the purpose, then it doesn't belong on the website. A clear purpose allows TowerQ to tailor our advice to your specific needs.
Step 2: Design Style
Next, based on the purpose of the site, you should decide what type of style you want to use for the site. You can use TowerQ's basic template for free or you can purchase a template from the ThemeForest website. ThemeForest provides high quality designs at affordable prices.
We recommend using the basic TowerQ website if your website's main purpose centers around delivering content without a strong emphasis on look and design. If your website needs a strong emphasis on look and design, we recommend using a ThemeForest design.
Basic Design
Step 3: Color
The basic design template's customization centers around color and content. It is important to match the colors of the site with your branding, content, and overall purpose for the site.
In order to get the basic site setup, we require that you provide a minimum of three colors (up to a maximum of five) that you would prefer for the site. We will then take those colors and integrate them in the Delivery & Revision step listed below.
How do you get the colors? That's easy. Let us know you want to see what your site would look like with the basic design and we'll direct you to a simple color picker that is easy to use.
ThemeForest Design
Step 3: Find Design
The ThemeForest website isn't the easiest site to navigate. The page that lays out all of the categories on ThemeForest can be found here.
Tips:
- On the categorires page, there are 4 categories listed across the top. TowerQ can build a website for you using designs from any category.
- Since there are four categories across the top, the categories repeat. For instance, you'll notice there are 4 different Corporate > Business categories listed. Be sure to look at all relevant categories.
- There are also Misc categories (ie. Drupal and Tumblr) listed at the bottom.
- To preview a specific design, click on the thumbnail for the design. You will then see preview options (usually Screenshots and/or Live Preview). If you click Live Preview, you can get an idea what the site looks like.
- If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.
Step 4: Content
The content stage involves all of your text, images/logos that you want to use on the site. If you already have a site and you are transitioning to a TowerQ website, then this will be an easy step for you. If you are building your website from scratch, we recommend looking at other materials you have created (brochures, letters, advertisements, etc.) to help shape the content for your website.
Step 5: Delivery & Revisions
Websites constantly change and update. TowerQ actually sets up two websites for you. One website is a preview/testing website to make sure that everything looks and functions correctly. Once you approve everything on the preview website, it gets published to your live website. Any time you need to make an update to your website you can either contact us directly or use the tools available in the TowerQ Management system.