WEBSITE DISCOVERY
A website quote starts by understanding what the website needs to do.
YOUR STARTING POINT
Based on what you told us, we have marked four parts of this page for you.
01
WHERE IT USUALLY STARTS
Most projects begin with one sentence.
- “We need a website.”
- “We need to replace our website.”
- “We want more enquiries.”
- “We need online bookings.”
- “Our organisation has changed.”
Any of those is a good place to start. None of them is enough to quote from
yet.
Before a price can mean anything, both sides need to understand the depth and
breadth of the work. What the site has to do, who it has to help, what it
needs to hold, and what has to connect to it.
So the first conversation is a shared one. You know your organisation. My job
is to understand it well enough to scope the work honestly.
02
THE CONVERSATION
Start with what you already know.
There is no set questionnaire. Different projects need different
conversations, and how far it goes depends on how much is already settled.
What the website needs to do
- How the organisation works
- People the website needs to help
- What people need to understand and do
- Content it may need
- Systems it may connect to
- Material already available
- Constraints, dependencies and unknowns
What the website needs to do
- How the organisation works
- People the website needs to help
- What people need to understand and do
- Content it may need
- Systems it may connect to
- Material already available
- Constraints, dependencies and unknowns
WHAT OFTEN BECOMES CLEARER
The website can often do more useful work than expected.
Talking it through, people often recognise possibilities they had not connected
to the website before. Naming them early is useful whether they end up in the
project or not.
- Explain the business more clearly than it currently does.
- Support one particular customer journey properly.
- Reduce repetitive admin for someone.
- Connect bookings, payments or other systems.
- Organise information that has become complicated.
- Make trust and evidence easier to find.
- Support a business process nobody had thought of as part of the website.
03
SORTING IT OUT
A bigger list is not the goal.
Once the possibilities are on the table, the useful step is separating them.
Plenty of good ideas belong in a later stage, or nowhere at all.
- ESSENTIAL
- The website cannot do its job without it.
- USEFUL
- Worth having, worth costing, not the reason for the project.
- CAN WAIT
- Better as a later stage, once the site is live and earning its keep.
- NOT NEEDED
- Sounds appealing, does not serve this organisation.
- STILL UNKNOWN
- Named now so it is not quietly assumed later.
04
WHAT IT LEADS TO
A proposal you can judge properly.
Enough shared understanding to write a proposal that means something. It sets
out:
- The outcome the work is aiming at.
- What is included.
- Functionality and integrations that matter.
- Who is responsible for what, and what it depends on.
- Assumptions and open questions.
- Likely timing.
- Price.
Not everything is designed or specified at this stage. Where something is still
open, the proposal says so rather than pretending otherwise.
ONCE THE WORK IS AGREED
The detailed work carries on inside the project.
The first stage gives us enough shared understanding to quote responsibly.
Detailed strategy, specification and design follow once the project is agreed.
- Audience journeys in detail
- Site structure
- Page and content planning
- Functional specifications
- Design direction
- Technical configuration
If you know a website is needed, that is enough to start a conversation.