Project Milestones 

Throughout the design process your designer will complete your web development project in a series of phases called milestones. As each milestone is completed you will be asked to review and sign off on the appropriate milestone until your project has been completed. Upon completion of your project you will be asked to sign a project sign off form acknowledging that you have reviewed your final project and find it to be satisfactory and in lines with the scope of the project as outlined in your proposal and/or web development contract.

The five phrases in order of completion are

1. The Consultation Phase

During the consultation phase our designers will work with you to determine your site development needs as well as your marketing budget. Our designers will determine the purpose of your web site and discuss in detail your goals, needs and expectations.

Based on the initial consultation and interview our designers will generate a storyboard and generate an estimate or quote based on your needs. Prior to your receipt of these items you will be asked to sign a Pre-Project Protection Agreement that protects our idea, designs and proposal.

Once you have had time to review the proposal and other materials and negotiated modifications as needed a project contract/agreement will be drawn up outlining the scope and payment terms of your project.

2. Execution of Agreement (Milestone 1)

Upon receipt of your signed contract/agreement and initial deposit the development and design process begins. During this initial phase you will be asked to gather information for this and future milestones as defined during the consultation phase. Information that you may be required to produce include (but are not limited to) existing marketing materials, photos, text, brochures, business cards, flyers, product shots, product samples, press releases, price and part lists, frequently asked questions, shipping and handling charges, guarantees, warranties, privacy policies, return policies, merchant account information, testimonials, bios, history, certifications, awards, contact information and list of keywords and phrases to be used in search engine optimization.

During this phase we will assist you in registering a domain name or names and selecting a hosting package to meet your needs. Your designer will work with you to determine fonts and color schemes and create a navigation system and index page mock up for your review and approval.

3. Project Execution (Milestone 2)

The project execution phase (milestone 2) consists of creating the technical aspects of your web site including creation of a robots.txt file (to exclude entire site from search engine spiders), set up of your hosting account and FTP directories and set up of e-mail addresses.

A template page will be created based on the mock up from the previous milestone and enhanced to include rollovers, headers, trailers, copyright notice, credit links and addition of Meta tags.

At the end of this milestone your designer will have completed a skeleton home page complete with navigation links to the main site areas and a clear navigation scheme that will be consistent across the entire site.

4. Project Execution (Milestone 3)

In this phase additional skeleton pages will be created for each main page of your web site and unique, descriptive keyword rich page titles will be added. A site map, privacy policy and help or frequently asked questions page will be created as needed.

At the end of this milestone you will have a complete skeleton site with no broken links. All of the pages are present and empty of client supplied content to be filled in.

5. Project Execution (Milestone 4)

During the final phase of the design process client supplied body content, text and images will be added to pages. Upon completion of content addition the robots.txt file will be updated to exclude only specific files and folders to be excluded from search engine spiders as needed. All pages will be tested for broken links and other errors and spell checked prior to being uploaded to the host server.

Usability test will be performed on forms and pages to ensure that all aspects of the site are functional and operating properly. Once we have determined your web site to be functional and complete it will be manually submitted to the major search engines for inclusion in search results and project sign off form will be sent to you.

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