You’ve got a website in the works and you have a deadline in mind. These tips are there to help you ensure that your deadline is not missed, based on my experiences with clients.
Content
I’ve mentioned in my blogs before about having content ready to go before getting your site designed. The main reason for this is to help ensure that your site is ready on time and not falling victim to having dribs and drabs sent across, or endless changes to content as you revise it.
In fact, in majority of cases where my deadlines for building a site were missed, it was because of not having the content when I needed it. So, right now, I ask for all content before starting work and I know I am not the only one who does that.
New Inclusions and/or Revisions
Major revisions, and even some seemingly minor revisions, can push back deadlines as changes can take time to be done to the standard needed.
Even more so, if you ask for new content to be added in that wasn’t originally agreed upon. This can take a lot of time to ensure that the new features and content match the rest of the design properly.
This is the second highest reason why I miss a deadline. It is not realistic to expect that a new feature to be ready within days, so new deadlines need to be set.
Information
This one comes up from time to time; and to reduce my design timelines being thrown out the window, I have a solution I offer to clients.
When you need access to the Domain Registrar and/or Hosting Company, but the client is unaware of what that information is, this can delay the send live date while they try to track down this information.
My solution to that is that I offer web hosting to my clients to give a quick, simple, way of moving forward. Otherwise, it is required information a few weeks out from a send live to give people time to find the information and not leave it til the last minute.
Payment
It is not uncommon for Web Designers to hold off on sending live a website due to non-payment. If you were expected to pay for the site before the send live, any delay in the payment can cause delay in your site going live.
Finally, there are those reasons you can’t prepare for, despite all the best planning. This can include illness to the client, or illness to the designer (especially in the case where it’s a solo business). Sometimes real life bites you hard, and regardless of how prepared you think you are, delays happen.
Minimise those delays by ensuring that you’re on top of the areas mentioned above, to give you the best chance of having the site go live when you want it to.
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