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I Don’t Have Enough Information to Quote for This Job

It’s exciting to meet with new clients and have the opportunity to bid on a project. There’s something about the energy a new client brings that sparks creativity in most freelancers. However, what do you do when you sit down (or stand up) at your desk to prepare the quote and you realize you don’t […]

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How Do I Stop Losing Money on the Work I Do?

It’s a freelancer’s nightmare scenario: losing money on a job. Unfortunately, it happens more frequently than you might think. As a freelancer, you have to learn hard lessons as you build your business. However, you shouldn’t have to continue losing money on jobs you work hard to get. Here’s how to make sure you are […]

What's the best time to plan your website?

When’s the best time to start your business website plan?

Having a website plan for your business is the most important way to guarantee your success. So when should you start the planning process? The answer is at the very beginning. That seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? At the beginning means: Before designers Before developers Before search engine optimizers Before any social or paid marketing […]

Time to stop drinking your bathwater!

Wait … what? Who drinks their bathwater? What has this got to do with websites and planning? This topic is as much about marketing as it is about website planning, but before you switch off, all website planning is about marketing. You realise that, right? Over many years I have used this expression, creating much […]

Handling change in a scope

What do you do after agreeing on a scope but then realise changes are needed? It would be easy to think that, having invested time into preparing a proper scope for your new website, that everything will run to plan and nothing will change. That is unlikely to happen except possibly on small sites. It’s […]

Shouldn’t my designers be doing this?

The website planning process outlined in my book can appear that it’s an all or nothing approach to planning. I indeed think the owners of the web property need to be heavily invested in the planning process and take the lead on a large portion of it. That view comes from many years of watching […]

Why wire framing is so important to the design process

In The Complete Website Planning Guide I outline what a wireframe is and the confusion that many people get, particularly on the client side, with wireframes. A wireframe isn’t a prototype or a design; typically it doesn’t use colour or images, and mostly will only use some actual content. When you see a drawing/image, which […]

Plan to delight the users

This week I read a blog from Seth Godin called The minimum viable audience which resonated with me and the goals and audience section inside my Planning Guide. He talks about focussing in on the smallest group that could sustain you in your work. And if you could pick them who would you choose. If […]

The Danger Of Scoping After Contract Acceptance

Ideally creating a scope of works for a web project would be done before entering into a design and development contract for the work. For many clients they want a simplified process, choosing a developer and moving forward in the project. Agencies and developers often are happy to get work in this way and take […]

What comes first, design or content?

It’s a question that comes up a lot. What comes first, the content or the design. Getting this right has a big impact on the success of your project and the planning stage of your website is the best time to address it. I discuss what I think is the correct way to handle this […]