My Squarespace Web Design Client Process

So the question was more along the lines of when you get a client.

What does your process look like like? How does payment work because the client has to pay for Squarespace and like when? Do they pay? You, and I thought, that’s a really good question and I kind of figured that out by trial and error. So I am going to tell you guys what you do. What I do so that you don’t have to do the trial and error, because I did it for you. So when someone inquires about a Squarespace site, I will generally like ask them a couple questions and my email just to see if we’re a good fit and make sure that we’re aligned budget wise.

If we are, then we’ll jump on a call just to like meet and make sure like for me, it’s like, I want to make sure you’re normal, like you’re, not crazy, and then they want to make sure that they like me and that we can work well Together and then, if they decide to go ahead with it, I’ll send them their contract and their invoice for a deposit, and then I also send my website questioner the website questionnaire.

I asked a lot of things more generally about the business and sort of the aesthetic fied that they have so far. Do they have branding who’s their target audience? What sort of pages do they envision just roughly so I have them fill out. The questionnaire through dub Sydow and when that’s done, we’ll reconvene on another call and that’s what I call like our strategy, call to go through that questionnaire and then we’ll discuss sort of ways that we might think about, laying out the site.

What we’re going to call the pages, what their content would be? How does the homepage flow? Where does the call-to-action go? It’s just sort of like a collaborative discussion of like okay. What information do you need on the site, and how can I make you? How can I help you to effectively communicate that and I sort of go over my notes from the call and then from there I create a content map in Google Docs, and this is something that’s totally accustomed to each of my clients and it’s really straightforward.

It’s basically just I will create a Google Doc and then I will break it down page by page, so like home page and then I’ll type, a little outline. So, like you know banner banner image, do you want it to have a tagline banner image and then about me blurb? What do you want it to say there and then we’ll have a button that links through your about me and then offerings that will link through to your like packages, call-to-action work with me and then it links through to your contact page.

So just like suggested stuff like that, where the client or their copywriter would then go in and fill out the Google Doc. In addition to that, I also set up multiple Google folders on on Google Drive and each folder represents one page and that’s where the clients going to go in and drop their pictures for each page. I do request that the clients pick out the photos for each page, but they don’t have to.

They don’t have to be set in stone. They don’t. They don’t have to tell me exactly where they’re going, if I do have a client that wants to okay. This goes at the top. This goes here. This goes there. That’s fine! I just asked them to title the page so like next to about me, dot JPEG so like next to about need, object, a that would be the name of the picture. So then, I know exactly where it’s going when I’m dragging it into square space itself, so that tends to work out really well.

So I tend to allow about four weeks for that whole process, not that it takes that long. For me, but often my clients are writing their own copy, a or B they’re working with a copy writer, which is also a collaborative process that takes a while, and they often want to grab that sort of content map from me. First, take it to their copy writer. You know, make some small edits here and there and then once all of that is finalized, pictures copy, etc.

That’s when we go in and do the design, so I always set a design date ahead of time so that the client knows okay. This is how long I have to write and gather my content so that, in terms of actually building the site, I do it on a two-week process. This is something that I heard a long time ago from page Brenton who’s, also a Squarespace designer. She also has a YouTube blog and I highly recommend checking her out, but my process somewhat similarly to hers is two weeks.

Basically, the design date hits so, let’s say the design dates on a Monday like to keep things on a Monday. So it’s you know like a work week. Essentially mm-hm designed eight hits for that whole week. You can just do up until the Friday, but I like to give myself up until the whole the whole right until the Monday, so I’ll design the entire site based on the content map and all the work that we’ve done together up until that point on Squarespace And then the following Monday, I share a live preview with the client, so I don’t give them login details or anything, and this is what protects you as a designer from like the client running off with your work without paying the second half of what they owe.

You um so yeah the following Monday. I will give them the live preview and then what I say is the day that I give them the live preview. They also have one week to get any and all revisions back to me. So it’s kind of like an agreement between us both that we will both be available for that week. I try not to have any other clients during that week, because I want to have all my attention on that client and I expect the same from them.

So there should be a high level of communication, just getting all the edits in in a collaborative way, and they do have unlimited edits, but only within that week as soon as the following Monday hits. If they want anything revised past that I do charge. My hourly rate – and I just try to be super – super clear about that, so that no one gets confused and the reason that I do that sort of one-week design one-week revision period is to allow myself to stick to a schedule.

Because if you don’t do that, sometimes like website edits can go on for months and then by that time, you’ll sort of look back and realize that your hourly rate is nothing. You know and you’re, not making money and you’re pushing around all your other client projects. So you just have to be really clear when you’re speaking to your clients across all communication, so that means in your contract in your Welcome document in your meetings, you just have to really solidify that this is your process, the one week design one week revision and Then anything beyond that will be at your hourly rate generally.

People are super respectful and they understand working on schedules. So that’s good, but I will say that it helps to be really clear about that after the revision week generally, everything will be all set and good to go. So the question that I got on Instagram was sort of about more about like so how do they pay me and how does that work and then how do they go in and pay for their site like I don’t get it so, how I do it at Least is after the revision week, I will send them their invoice for the other 50 % plus, if we happen to add any additional pages along the way or if I did end up working extra hours on the revisions that would all go on to the final Invoice, I will send them the invoice and then I will wait for their payment and then, when I receive the payment I will go into the backend and I will invite them to be an admin on the site.

You can do that really easily under. I think it’s like settings permissions. You just invite them through email. So when they’ve accepted to be an admin, you can actually transfer the site ownership over to them and then at that point they can go in and put their payment information in and then sort of. Like officially own the site um, because people are hiring me to do the Squarespace work for them, a lot of them don’t have any idea what Squarespace is how it works.

So I always always always record usually two to three talk through articles for my clients. In terms of how to get the site actually live, because I can’t do everything like I don’t want them to be giving me their credit card information, I don’t want to be putting the payments in for them. So I do everything in terms of like transferring their domain. Getting everything ready to go live, but just they need to do the part.

That’s just you know, accepting the ownership and then putting their payment information and then just putting the visibility to live rather than private. I’ll record talk through articles, first of all explaining how to put your payment information in and just general like housekeeping sort of stuff like that, and then I record another article. That is a very brief talk through on just how to navigate the front and back end of the Squarespace platform on their site.

Specifically, so I like to cover everything from like switching out photos to like changing your color background, to changing your text to adding a new page to adding a new like contact box. These are all like pretty straightforward things for us as designers um, but I find that my clients really appreciate the talk-through article, especially because it’s tailored to their own site – and it’s me talking in the background – and they also like that it’s recorded so that they can Go back and reference it like six months down the road if they needed to update a page, they can just be like.

Oh, let me just go grab that article and then I can make this small update, um. So yeah, that’s basically my Squarespace process and I hope it was helpful for you guys. Let me know if you have any questions or any articles you’d like to see in the future.

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