Website Project

PLANNING & PREP

Customer Checklist To Start

  • Website Goals
  • Target Audience
  • Personas / User Narratives
  • Examples of Websites You Like
  • Logo (if available)
  • Company Colors (if available)
  • Desired Content (general idea)
  • Desired Navigation (general idea)
  • Website Name (singular / plural)
  • Domain Provider (Send un/pw if already purchased. If not, please don’t purchase yet!)
  • Host Provider (Send un/pw if site is already launched. If not, please don’t purchase yet!)
  • Email Aliases needed (e.g. john@, admin@, info@, support@, etc.)
  • Provide Photography / Audio / Video
  • Approve Final Project Scope Document
  • Deposit (view ballpark pricing scenarios)

Hammond Media Group Checklist

  • Project Management Set Up (Basecamp or UpWork)
  • Existing Website Audit / Needs Analysis / Recommendations / Concerns
  • Scope of Work / Contract Executed & Delivered
  • Project Management Set Up (Basecamp or UpWork)
  • Timeframe / Delivery
  • Payment Schedule
  • Vendor Fees / Expectations
    • Annual recurring hosting fees
    • Annual recurring domain fees
    • Annual recurring theme fees
    • Annual recurring plugin fees
    • Annual recurring backup fees
    • Annual recurring maintenance fees
    • Annual SSL fee
    • Email provider (e.g. MailChimp)
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PHASE I – LAYING THE FOUNDATION

This phase is the behind-the-scenes work that takes place to lay the foundation on which your WordPress site will be built.  This stage involves setting up the hosting account, buying the domain(s), installing the theme and desired plugins, creating your email aliases, creating initial pages, adding dummy filler content, creating navigation menus, setting up backup software, etc. This foundation — which is based on our mutually agreed upon project scope document — will serve as the shell of your website.

Please note: any new requests during this Phase I stage will be considered for an additional fee and may incur additional time. 

Foundation Elements

  • Domain Name (Preferred Provider: Bluehost)
  • Hosting Provider (Preferred Provider: Bluehost
  • Taxonomy (Content Organization, Categories, Tags)
  • Navigation / Menus
  • Mobile Compatibility / Responsive Design
  • reCaptcha (Spam Protection)
  • SSL Certificate (Secure Checkout)
  • UpdraftPlus (Backup Software)
  • Email Set-up / Aliases
  • Create Website Pages
    • About Us / Who We Are
    • Meet the Owner / Team
    • Contact Us
    • Products
    • Services
    • Privacy Policy (as needed)
    • Terms of Use
    • Copyright Policy
    • Testimonials
    • Other

Other (optional) Website Features

  • Email Capture / Integration / Popups
  • Google Analytics
  • Search
  • Forms
  • Video Integration
  • RSS Feed Integration
  • eCommerce
  • Memberships
  • Subscriptions
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Event Calendar
  • Appointment Calendar
  • Image Upload
  • Real Estate / MLS Listings
  • Business Listings
  • Amazon Products
  • Stock Data / Charts

WordPress Themes

(Please note: there are hundreds of themes available. Although we can work with all themes, we have created robust sites using the themes listed below:

WordPress Plugins

(Please note: there are over 54,000 plugins to help your website meet your needs. This is just a small list of the WordPress Plugins we use most often for our clients.)

    • Jetpack by WordPress.com
    • Mailchimp / AutoChimp
    • Akismet Anti-Spam
    • Classic Editor
    • Shortcodes Ultimate
    • Column Shortcodes
    • Slider Revolution
    • Storefront Parallax Hero (for Storefront theme)
    • Homepage Control (for Storefront theme)
    • Duplicate Post
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Simple Custom CSS
    • Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP)
    • Instagram Feed Pro Personal
    • Login No Captcha reCAPTCHA (Google)
    • Exclude Pages from Navigation
    • If Menu – Visibility control for menu items
    • Nav Menu Roles
    • Ninja Forms
    • Disqus for WordPress
    • Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields
    • UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore
    • Social Media Widget
    • Testimonials
    • Wordfence Security
    • WP RSS Aggregator
    • Yoast SEO
    • WP User Avatar
    • WordPress Editorial Calendar
    • Recently Registered
    • Ad Inserter
    • Leadpages Connector
    • Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin
    • Optima Express IDX Plugin (Real Estate)
    • Widget Logic
    • WP Super Cache (Caching option)
    • WordPress Importer (as needed)
    • Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

eCommerce (optional)

Businesses in the United States use WooCommerce to sell anything and everything from luxury mattresses and cupcakes to kayak lessons and hand-crafted jewelry — online. With 73,049,483 downloads, WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for building an online store. Extend WooCommerce with some of the hundreds of free and paid WooCommerce extensions offered in their official marketplace, including Stripe, PayPal, USPS, MailChimp, and many more.

Subscriptions (optional)

With WooCommerce Subscriptions, you can create and manage products with recurring payments — payments that will give you residual revenue you can track and count on. WooCommerce Subscriptions allows you to introduce a variety of subscriptions for physical or virtual products and services. Learn more.

Memberships (optional)

WooCommerce Memberships is not just another plugin for restricting your site’s content: it’s an easy-to-use, site-wide membership solution that brings your content, shop, and memberships together. Memberships allows you to create an entire membership system that’s seamlessly tied to your store. You can restrict your content to members, but you can also “drip” that content over time to schedule when members have access. Sell access to memberships, include memberships with product purchases, manually assign memberships, and completely integrate member perks within your store. Learn more.

Memberships is fully functional as a stand-alone membership solution, but it works very well with the most advanced eCommerce recurring payments solution mentioned above: WooCommerce Subscriptions. When both plugins are active, Memberships can leverage some features of Subscriptions to give you more flexibility over membership billing:

  • Memberships can use recurring billing (e.g., monthly payments) for the membership rather than a set term (such as a year)
  • Memberships can use Subscriptions as a payment plan, but control access length itself to support installment payments
  • Free trials can be used for the membership via a subscription
  • Content restriction and dripping can include or exclude free trial periods so you control what content is available in trials
  • Members can pause their own memberships by suspending a subscription
  • Members can upgrade or downgrade memberships by switching a subscription
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PHASE II – CONTENT & DESIGN

Now that the foundation is laid, we help you put your best foot forward with content. This is also the stage where we make it all look good from a design perspective (matching your designated theme). From ensuring design elements are consistent throughout the site (colors, font size, look and feel) to adding links where appropriate to drive traffic, our goal is to develop a robust site that drives traffic and reinforces your brand.

Please note: any new requests during this Phase II stage will be considered for an additional fee and may incur additional time. 

Content Creation / Editing / Review

  • Copy Writing / Copy Editing
  • Editorial Calendar Set Up
  • SEO (Meta tags, Keywords)
  • Design Consistency
  • Photography / Thumbnails
  • Video Integration
  • Social Media Integration
  • Social Media Sharing
  • Link Building
  • Downloads / PDFs (as needed)
  • MailChimp Integration / Email Opt-ins
  • Forms
  • Buttons
  • Ads

eCommerce (optional)

  • Products / Pricing
    • Variations
    • Pricing
    • Photos
    • Descriptions
    • Tags
    • Related Products
    • Facebook / Instagram Catalog (additional cost)
  • Shopping Cart Set Up / Testing
  • Stripe Payment Gateway (recommended) Set Up / Testing
  • PayPal (optional)
  • Shipping Options

Subscriptions (optional)

  • Subscription Products / Variable Options
  • Subscription Pricing
  • Subscription Terms
  • Coupons
  • Sign Up Fees / Free Trials
  • Customer Emails

Memberships (optional)

  • Membership Levels
  • Membership Pricing
  • Content Access / Restriction / Dripping
  • Perks
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PHASE III – FINAL REVIEW / LAUNCH

At this point, an audit will be done to ensure all content is accurate, all elements function flawlessly, all links work, etc. Once all content and functionality has been reviewed and approved — and final payment has been received — your site will go live.

Please note: any new requests during this Phase III stage will be considered for a later project.

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PHASE IV – WEBSITE MAINTENANCE

Now that the website has launched, clients can take advantage of our ongoing maintenance services. Every website owner needs to regularly maintain their site. Otherwise, they may find their WordPress website doesn’t function properly over time or worse, it gets hacked.

As part of our recurring maintenance agreement (six month and one year interval options are available), customers receive ongoing maintenance for their website (WordPress updates, theme updates, plugin updates, backups and more). However, if they choose to go it alone, then please refer tothis list of recommended guidelines.

 

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