Deep Fried’s 8-Phase Process for Crafting Custom Websites

Initial / Phase 0 : Sales & On-boarding

In order to build a website that truly meets your needs, we must first start with an open dialogue about what your site means to your business. We want to understand what the competition is doing and where they are missing out, and how your website needs to perform – not just now – but as you scale your business. We’ll provide a comprehensive proposal to you and once you’re ready, you’ll receive a questionnaire that will begin to inform us of preliminary strategy questions and technical information.

Phase 1 : Client Kickoff Meeting

In our kickoff and discovery meeting, we bring together all key client-side decision-makers along with our creative, strategy, and development teams. Your onboarding information will have set us up for a successful session filled with discussions on creative strategy, user experience planning, and further goal setting.

Phase 2 : Strategy & Planning

Your unique needs and goals guide every step of our process, lending influence to our creative design, content strategy, and site development structure. With a thorough understanding of these in place, our initial concepts take shape, and are reviewed with you to establish the right foundation.

Phase 3 : Design & Content Development

With the overarching strategy established, the creative team fleshes out the full website, complete with mobile and desktop mockups, wireframes, and style systems. In parallel, our writers begin crafting your SEO-driven narrative. Our team works with yours along the way to ensure we showcase your brand and tell its story with thoughtful intent.

Phase 4 : Web Development

Now the fun begins. With the approval of site architecture, design elements, and a cohesive narrative, our development team begins hand-coding your site. Your website comes to life as we enable all elements of design and UX, build out the platform, and pair it with optimized content. All site integrations, e-commerce, and special needs get accounted for and customized.

Phase 5 : Staging & Internal Review

To ensure every aspect of the site functions as intended, the development team, with an emphasis on testing, reviews your site with creative, content and strategy teams. Our creative & UX teams quality check the site for design and function; editors proofread and review keywords alongside your brand’s voice; and our accounts and sales team affirm that your goals and expectations are being met.

Phase 6 : Client Review & Changes

Once the site passes our rigorous internal checks, we walk you through the site and demonstrate its interactions. We’ll work with you as you provide feedback, request changes, and ultimately give your final approval on the project. Before we go live, you and your team receive training on how to edit and manage the site. And once you’re comfortable with it, we’ll finalize the timeline and gear up for deployment.

Phase 7 : Final QA & Deployment

As a final system of checks and balances, our team performs a complete, final walk-through, accounting for all revisions, edits, and technical updates that may have occurred during development. This is a big moment that requires graceful planning and execution, so we follow many internal deployment protocols to ensure the process is timely, with minimal hiccups. And, it’s go time – congrats, your website is now live! 🎉

Phase 8 : Website Maintenance

To keep your new site current with ongoing technology changes post-launch, we offer a range of support. We recommend a maintenance program which covers routine software and security updates throughout the year. Additional maintenance services range from minor tweaks and technical troubleshooting, to content management and SEO, to extended and continuous support for our eCommerce clients.