Processes
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      HubSpot Website Build Process

      The website is make-or-break for companies today, which means building a new website or redesigning your current site is a process that simply has to be done right.

      A thorough understanding of your company, your offerings, and your customers is needed to develop a site that looks great and provides an experience your customers and search engines will love.

      Building your site on the HubSpot CMS with ManoByte means you get expert design, development, and site strategy support with the ease of HubSpot’s drag-and-drop page editor. Our website build process has six main phases:

      1. Onboarding (Kickoff)
      2. Strategy & Design
      3. Development
      4. Build
      5. Testing
      6. Roll-out

      The complete website build process depends on the complexity and size of your site but generally takes three (3) to six (6) months. Being engaged with the process helps streamline activities and prevents a delayed site launch.

      Onboarding (Kickoff)

      To get started on your new website, you’ll meet with your Project Manager (PM) and the members of our team who will be working on your website. These roles include developers, designers, implementation specialists, and content specialists.

      During the 30-minute kickoff meeting, you’ll be introduced to your team, then we’ll review your company, the goals for your website, and the proposal to ensure we’re on the same page. Then, we’ll go over the next steps for your website project.

      Estimated time: 1 day

      Strategy & Design

      During the strategy phase, we conduct a couple of audits of the existing website to understand its current performance in more detail. We’ll then present our findings to you in a Strategy Review Meeting. The goal of this meeting is to ensure our strategy findings are in line with the goals for your site we defined earlier. Once approved, we’ll use the strategy to design your website.

      1. Website Audit: In the website audit, the implementation specialist exports all of your website page analytics and examines how they’re doing on a page-by-page scale. They’ll look at metrics like page views, bounce rate, average session length, traffic sources, and ranking keywords. This information helps us build a redirect strategy and SEO strategy to maintain and improve rankings for target keywords. Estimated time: 1 week

      2. Competitor Analysis: The implementation specialist will conduct a competitor analysis, which includes a review of your top three competitors’ websites to identify their pitfalls and how we can build your new site to create a better visitor experience. Estimated time: 1 week

      3. Website Specifics: Your project manager and content specialist will develop a page list and outlines for each of the major pages during this stage. This includes creating a sitemap to show how the website’s navigation and structure will look. Estimated time: 1 week

      4. Technical Integration Roadmap: The solutions architect will create a roadmap for any integrations needed along with the website.

      5. Design Page Mockups: The designer will create visual representations of major website pages to show how the final design will look. Estimated time: 2 weeks

      6. Strategy Overview Meeting: After our team has compiled all our resources and developed a strategy, we’ll present the complete strategy to you during a meeting where you can ask questions and provide additional insights and information where needed. Estimated time: 1 week

      Estimated time for the full strategy phase: 4-6 weeks

      Development

      Once the strategy is approved, we move on to the development phase, which includes:

      1. Develop Website Templates: Build templates for the website, including importing or creating a custom site theme, developing custom modules, and creating system pages like the 404 page.

      2. Content Creation: Develop and finalize the content for each page based on the approved outlines and strategy.

      3. Integrations: Implement integrations as outlined in the technical integration roadmap.

      Estimated time: 3-4 weeks

      Build

      The build phase includes:

      1. Build Pages: Populate the website’s pages with the approved content, images, and any necessary database tables (HubDB).

      2. Technical SEO: Optimize all pages for technical SEO, including titles, meta descriptions, ALT tags, and tracking codes.

      3. Create Redirect Strategy: Plan how old URLs will redirect to new pages to minimize 404 errors and maintain SEO rankings.

      4. HubSpot Setup: Configure standard HubSpot settings, including account defaults, tracking codes, domains, external accounts, IP filtering, and privacy settings.

      Estimated time: 4-6 weeks

      Testing

      Once the build phase is complete, we proceed to testing:

      1. Internal QA: Perform thorough testing of the site across different devices and browsers, and fix any content, display, structure, or functional issues.

      2. Client QA: Conduct a review of the website and provide feedback.

      3. QA Changes: Implement any necessary changes based on client feedback from the QA review.

      Estimated time: 2-3 weeks

      Roll-out

      The roll-out phase includes:

      1. Client Training: Train the client on how to use and manage the website using HubSpot’s CMS.

      2. Launch Site: Publish the website from the staging environment to the live domain, perform final QA checks, and ensure all redirects are functioning properly.

      3. Performance Testing: Monitor and test the website’s performance during the 30 days of support to ensure it passes all Website Grader reports and performs at an 80+.

      4. Post-Launch Support: Provide support to address any issues or concerns that arise after the site launch.

      Estimated time: 4-6 weeks

      If you have questions or concerns following your site’s launch, send your project manager an email with the details, and they can assist and pull in other team members as needed.