Strategy before design: what actually goes first

Most website projects start in the wrong place. Someone opens a design tool, picks a layout they like, and starts pouring content into it. The result can look fine and still fail to do its job, because the structure was decided before anyone worked out what the site needed to say.

Discovery comes first

Every project I take on starts with a discovery call. Not a sales call. The point is to understand your business, your customers, and what you actually need the website to do. Sometimes that conversation ends with us agreeing I am not the right fit, which is a better outcome than finding out three weeks in.

What comes out of it is a shared understanding of who we are talking to and what has to be true for them to get in touch.

Then structure and messaging

Only after that do we map the site: what each page needs to say, and in what order, to guide a visitor toward taking action. This is unglamorous work. It is also where most of the value is, because it decides what the design has to do.

This is the same stage where we plan any photography or video the site needs, so the real content exists before design starts rather than getting dropped in at the end. A layout built around placeholder images and lorem ipsum almost never survives contact with the real thing.

You approve it before design starts

There is a review point here on purpose. You see the strategy and the structure, and sign off on them, before I start designing. It is far cheaper to move a section in a document than to rebuild a page.

By the time design begins, we both know what the site is for and what every page has to do. The design work is then about making that clear and making it feel like your business, rather than guessing at both.