Launching My New Website – lessons learned
After having the concept of Women & Wealth Solutions brew in my head for over 10 years, I finally decided to launch it for real. I knew that I had to map out the process, hire the right professionals to help me in that process, work on the content, and at some point let them own the process while I patiently waited for the result.
For once it worked!!
After I created the content, my business advisor edited the process, the photographer set up the photo shots, the videographer handled the videos and the web designer put it all together on a site that properly connected the vision and concept to a tangible interactive web site.
As I had hoped for, the process was a wonderfully energizing learning experience that allowed my creative juices to flow. Here are a few tips learnt along the way:
* Make sure to hire the right people. I realized that when I started to interview web designers, photographers etc. that the variety of professionals out there was overwhelming. From price differentials to esthetic differences, the options seemed endless. I decided that I would keep looking until I was absolutely sure I had hired the right person. It did take time but was worth the effort as I did eventually meet the right professionals who understood my vision, concept and esthetics and made the development and execution easy.
* You’ll know it when you see it. I found that spending time looking at other web sites, searching for art work both on line and in real life, reading and stay updated from different contributing journalists, helped in understanding what I wanted for the web site and what I didn’t. It was incredible to experience those moments when what I saw resonated with me as a “yes, must have” versus a gut reaction of “nope, that’s not it”. The more samples and example of both yeses and no’s I had, the clearer the vision became and the easier it was to translate to the professionals what and how I wanted the web site to look and feel.
* Be open to suggestions that you didn’t think of. Hiring professionals to do the job was the result of my confessing to myself that I was not capable of setting this web site up by myself. I soon realized that I was best served in the process if after I showed, explained and shared my vision, I allowed the professionals to take over and tell me what I needed to know. They were able to bring to the table issues, concerns and solutions to parts of the process I didn’t know existed. Gadget access, layout impacted by difference gadgets, linking different apps and programs to interact seamlessly, was well beyond my comprehension but right up their alley and sphere of expertise.
Enjoy the fruits of ALL your labors
Ultimately the work pays off and a web site is born and proudly released to the universe.