In spring of 2023, flush with cash from the largest project we’d done to date as an agency, I spent five grand on a spreadsheet.

Wait, it gets worse.

This spreadsheet promised to help me see my finances at a glance, forecast us making more money, and keep our profit margins intact. It would

I…broke it in 2 weeks and didn’t use it 3 months after it was built.

And ChatGPT 3 (remember that?) came out a few months later. I could have built the whole color-coded thing in a couple hours of prompting for $20/mo.

Moment of silence for the lost $4,980.

How and why did I think a $5K spreadsheet would solve my operations, management, and sales problems?

Great question, we’ll get into it.

But first,

About every 3 months I know of a founder that’s about to make a Spreadsheet Mistake with their website.

It’s not their fault.

It’s just too easy to hire the wrong people to build your site when you don’t know how to build a website and what to look for in the person (or people) who are.

And most founders do not know how the website cheese gets made.

Which means they have no idea how to vet an agency outside of budget and vibes.

Typically, the clients we rebuild sites for had their site built in the last year.

Because their “brand new site” doesn’t work, sell, or make sense to their audience, so now they have to re-do it all again.

Double ouch.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Which is why in today’s issue of Not My Job, I’m gonna walk you through what to avoid, look for, and how to find a great website agency to build your site right so it actually sells your product and service and isn’t a nightmare to maintain.

Table of Contents

• Before you start hunting for a website peep

  • Get real clear on what’s actually broken in your c …

  • Know what your budget is

  • Have a rough idea of your tech stack

  • Know what the steps are to a successful build

    • 1. Prep - getting all of the information in one pl …

    • 2. Nailing the copy

    • 3. Design magic

    • 4. Development

    • 5. QA

    • 6. Deploy/Launch

• How to find the right agency (or freelancer)

  • Ask around!

  • Freelancer vs agency?

• How to make sure that you don’t get ripped off

  • Ask them for case studies (and watch for how they …

  • Ask if the designer is on staff for the sites you …

  • Ask for design examples if you’re not seeing what …

  • See if they do a site audit before they quote you …

  • Ask for an itemized proposal and timeline

  • Ask for sample onboarding

• And finally, what you are hiring for when you are …

• Now back to that Spreadsheet Mistake.

Before you start hunting for a website peep

Get real clear on what’s actually broken in your current site

Why do you want a new site?

Fresh coat of paint? Just got funded? Need to sell more or better?

That last one is the best of those three btw.

Here’s some helpful pointers before you get hit with “shiny site syndrome”.

• If your design is fine and the pages correspond to your services in a way that makes sense, what you probably need is updated copy and a minimal site update, not a full rebuild.

• If you’re starting from scratch and don’t have an existing site, a one-pager with a blog/your main content type and documentation is probably all you need.

• If your site is breaking right-left-and-center OR you’re OR you’re trying to scale but your site is from a different decade…yeah, you’re gonna need the works.

Which leads us to talkin’ numbers.

Know what your budget is

“I’m not sure what this should cost” sounds honest, but is a real great way to get overcharged.

Here’s a formula to find out what you should be paying.

• Copy - expect $1K/page (and $1.5K+ for a homepage)

• Design - expect 500/page

• Dev - expect $1K+ page

Flat ranges work best so you know what your wiggle room is.

And your site should cost no more than 10-15% of your current annual revenue, TOPS.

If that number is less than $2.5K, then expect to have a one-page site. A killer one page site will make you more money than a mediocre five-page will.

Just ask Kalyl. 🪦 

Have a rough idea of your tech stack

You don’t have to be “locked in” on a website platform, but you should have a shortlist.

And you should know all of the integrations and tools you want to connect to the site.

Fun stuff like your…

• Analytics

• CRM

• Email sending

• Forms

• etc

The best way to do this is to go through your marketing and sales tools and ask yourself “Does this need to connect to the site? If so, where?”

And if you’re a SaaS, please, I BEG YOU be very clear on what part of the product the main website CTA goes to. Because the website is to get them there. That’s it.

I’ve recommended Webflow for years (years!) but they’ve redone their pricing about every 2-3 months for the last 2-3 years and while the platform is still pretty good, i can’t give my wholehearted “YEAH!” to it as the best way to build a site (for SaaS co’s in particular, service co’s have a lot more options IMO).

So I’d say, Webflow is good if you want customizability and general ease, if you want budget, try Framer (currently testing it), and if you need something custom without code that has app-like functionality, try Aptuitiv.

And here are a few to avoid:

• Wordpress

• Wix

• Hard coding it - tempting when you want lots of extra animations and custom scripts, but if you’re not planning on hiring an entire marketing team that can code OR a dedicated website peep this is going to be a nightmare to maintain or market with.

Know what the steps are to a successful build

There are 5 steps to getting a site out (6 if you count prep).

1. Prep - getting all of the information in one place

you need a master project doc with

• a brief of what your goals are for the site when it’s done (what constitutes “success”)

• a list of all of the internal team members who have a say in the project and what their roles and responsibilities are, especially as it relates to approvals and handoffs - that way you aren’t going back-and-forth in review windows over a pixel-point with the CFO.

• your timelines and availabilities - if someone is going out of town or you have a hard launch deadline tied to a company goal, this is the place to put it!

• customer discovery/sales/research/support calls - get the customer research stuff put together in advance and save everyone sleep trying to find it later. Also makes sure everyone is looking at the same thing.

• get all of your service and product explainers together, with pricing

• brand kit - you need colors, fonts, logo, and graphic elements (if you have them)

Walking in with this list will make you the best client for a web team AND help you start the project quickly and smoothly once you find the right partner.

2. Nailing the copy

Being very clear on:

• messaging

• tone of voice

• who the target audience is

• how to approach it

And crucially: what structure and flow should the site have to accurately walk a best-fit visitor to a sale based on awareness stage and answering their objections?

These two steps are what set your project up for success more than your website platform or design choices.

Right here is also where you need to have your first review.

It should be of the copy, and ideally the copy is presented in a wireframe.

3. Design magic

This is where your designer goes off into the Figma woods, concocts a potion, and comes back with a site.

Right here is where your second review should be, of the designs, with the correct copy, as a wireframe.

I’m biased, but Workflow is great for this. 😉

4. Development

Second time to the woods with the web team!

Once the dev is done, this is where your third review should be, of the live site on a staging link, with the correct copy and correct design and any animations working if you asked for them.

5. QA

Try to break it. try very hard. Know that there will always be something you missed because Murphy’s Law is a very real thing.

Domain connections? do it now.

Any redirects that needed to be setup, this is the time.

6. Deploy/Launch

Give my creation LIFEEEE!!

Set your launch window, wait for it to go live.

Bask in it’s beauty.

Skip one step, and your site’s not gonna work right.

Skip that first one and expect your web team to do the groundwork for you and help you figure out what you actually need is going to be real hard.

Here’s the thing: most agencies do just design and dev.

Which means you will need to make sure you can get them the pre-reqs before you start.

It’s a rare agency will do all 5, and if they are, typically they are run by a marketing or website generalist (ahem, like us!) and don’t just do websites.

Want more on this? We wrote a whole issue on these steps - How to Build Your Website in a Week

How to find the right agency (or freelancer)

Ask around!

Ask from founders you trust and respect where they found their website peep - they might not know someone, but they know where to look/ask.

And post what you need - with that detailed brief! - in some communities you’re active in. It’s a great way to get referalls from a web designers friend because it’s super clear what you want.

I found my best Webflow designer + Dev (hi Sergio!) on Twitter in the before takeover times.

Great designers are everywhere.

Freelancer vs agency?

I’ll be honest, if you need your messaging, copy, design and dev done for your site…that’s an agency job.

Because that’s 4-5 peoples jobs. Or you’re going to need to do steps 1-3 yourself or hire a sep freelancer to do it before the web ones step in.

So your choice of “agency vs freelancer” is really…

• Hire an agency to handle all the steps in one go - and pay more money so you don’t have to handle freelancer coordination

• Hire several freelancers to do each step separately - and pay more time (and possibly quality) to manage each one and the handoffs

• Do steps 1-3 in house, and then hire someone to do just design and dev - good if your team has copywriting experience. bad if you’re missing a foundation because it will show in the copy and the site structure.

How to make sure that you don’t get ripped off

Honestly, if you have put in the work i recommend on the prep work you will filter out most mediocre or poor-fit agencies from the get-go.

That being said, better safe than sorry!

Ask them for case studies (and watch for how they did it)

Designer’s site portfolios are hit or miss and rarely include process. What matters more is the how, not the what. They could have had an incredible site the client wanted “dumbed down” in the design department. Or vice versa.

Ask them for their process, what the site goals are they typically work for, and what their QA and SEO-optimization process is.

Ask if the designer is on staff for the sites you love

If there’s banger after banger of a site on their portfolio when you’re looking at agencies in particular, ask if their designer is on-staff or not. Because if you love the designs but that designer is booked for the next 6 weeks what you see and what you get will be very different.

Also ask what branding those clients came in with. If there’s was professional done before they started the site and you have a Pinterest moodboard and no brand work done it’s probably not gonna look the same.

Ask for design examples if you’re not seeing what you like

The opposite can also be true. If you’re digging the agency and their process but all of the sites they’ve built seem “bland” design wise on their site, ask them for their favorite or most beautiful ones.

They may have just not updated the site

because they were too busy building beautiful sites to update their own with their latest work (yes, it happens!).

If an agency has NO examples of great design after that, then they probably don’t have a great designer on staff. which means you should probably look elsewhere.

See if they do a site audit before they quote you a proposal

Yes, I have mixed feelings about “audits” but this is where it’s pretty crucial.

Before they scope your site, they need to know what pages you actually need - which is where that brief comes in!

When they know what the site needs to accomplish, and who your target audience is, they can reverse engineer what you actually need (and don’t) in a site, and what it would charge to do it.

“Standard 5 page site” is the worst thing you can hear here.

Because then you will end up with a bland, boilerplate layout that your (once and now maybe never) customers won’t convert on.

Ask for an itemized proposal and timeline

I will never not be amazed at how often a proposal doesn’t include a table. Tables are your friend!

Ask for sample onboarding

Especially if they haven’t already clearly stated what the next steps are and what they need from you.

it should include:

• (If they’re doing the copy too) a lengthy section on your tone of voice and customer research.

• a section for your product demos

• a section on your current website and what’s working from it

Aka they should be asking for the brief you built up in prep step 1.

If you slacked on the brief (i know, it’s a lot!) then this should cover any gaps and then some.

And if they say “Our onboarding is different for every client, so we can’t show you an example” swim away, swim away!

And finally, what you are hiring for when you are redoing your website is thoroughness, curiosity and organization

Thoroughness - They refuse to start work unless they have the nitty gritty information on your product, your services, and your customers or a clear path on when and how they’re getting that info.

Curiosity - They ask a lot of questions about what you do, how the product works and why your audience needs it. It’s not “just another project” for them.

Organization/Deliverability - They have a very clear process on how they do the work and who is doing what so that it gets done on time and without glaring mistakes.

Now back to that Spreadsheet Mistake.

Why did i think a $5K spreadsheet would save me from what was essentially overwork and poor time management?

I honestly don’t remember outside of vibes and a faint notion that the seller looked like she knew what she was doing.

Thing is, I didn’t need to ✨see the future ✨ in a spreadsheet. I needed a coach to walk me through what it would look like to build the future I wanted to live in.

And that’s what your website is doing - telling potential customers that you can help them achieve their dreams, giving them proof that it’s possible, .

That is what makes a website work (aka convert).

If you want me to help you avoid a Spreadsheet Mistake with your website, I’m happy to help.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve managed builds for dozens of sites, and we are that rare team that can handle customer research, copy, design, and dev without dropping the crystal ball.

Let’s chat.

Sophia 💜👩🏽‍💻

Powered by cat sitting in DC (holler if you’re in the DMV region!) 🐈‍⬛