Hello, everyone and welcome to a new series on my YouTube channel. This series is going to be documenting the process of me redesigning rebuilding my website from the very start to the very end when it launches. I did originally think about doing this. All in one video. Just as like an overview of how I built it at the end, when, eventually that happens, but I feel, like I’m going to be able to show you more of my process along the way. If I’m doing this video in chunks for like each part of the process, You’re gon na be able to see more in depth how I work and yeah just get more of that behind the scenes, and hopefully more learning as well. So I hope that sounds good to you In today,’s, video, the first in the series we’re gon na dive in with the planning phase Planning the site map planning. What pages I need to design? This is a really important part of the process. It’s, maybe not the funnest part of the process, cause it’s. Not when you’re like arranging pixels on the page and doing cool designs, It’s a lot of the thinking and the planning that goes into it beforehand Before you get to those stages. But I think it’s just as important and it’s just as important for you to see. So I’m excited to plan along with you today I’ve got my iPad got my Apple Pencil and let’s get going First off. Let’s take a look at my current website as it stands. I guess So. This was designed back in. I can’t remember now if it was 2014 or 2015, but I just know that it was a while ago And so the design needs some updating. I’ve changed my branding since then slightly and also this website, just doesn’t really fit to my needs anymore. It doesn’t really fit what I need from a website. I used to write pretty regularly on a blog as well on my old website, Not in the past year or so. But before then I was I’ve decided that I’m not going to be porting this blog over to my new website, Which, by the way I’m gon na, be building in Webflow. I guess it’s more of a visual way to build a website, so you don’t actually need to know how to code it from scratch to be able to make it in Webflow, And they have a really great CMS as well. It seems really powerful, so I’m excited to try that out. My current website is built in WordPress and they do have a way that you can like bring all your WordPress posts over to Webflow, but I’ve just decided. I’m not gon na bother. I’m gon na like leave those in the past. There is a couple of posts that I might transport over to my new blog that I’m gon na do which I’ll get into in a second but yeah. For the most part, this site is going to be completely revamped. I want my new site to be a little bit more flexible. I want it to do a few more things as well. The first thing is, I want it to be my content hub. This was kind of my idea for the previous one, but it didn’t really turn out that way. It was mostly just the blog posts and links to my latest on the home page, but I want to be able to have my videos on there podcasts on there blog posts on there and all be searchable together, so that if you want to learn about a Certain topic, I will be able to have a page for that with like this video, this blog post, oh and this podcast, that you should listen to on the topic So yeah. The first thing is bringing all my content together cause right now. It is just all separated out. The second thing is obviously because I’m a designer. I need to have my portfolio on my website and it’s not only my design work that I want to have a new portfolio. I also want to have like a speaker,’s page, Like a portfolio of my public speaking and workshop efforts to try and attract more of that. I am also planning on starting to blog again, as I alluded to before, but this time on a slightly different topic. I really want to write about the behind the scenes of my business So posts about like what it’s like to start up an LLC and working with an accountant income reports, perhaps something I’m thinking of doing These things, I feel don’t, Particularly fit with my YouTube channel, which is more design focused, but they’re still things I want to put out there, So I feel like writing about them, will be a good fit, So that will go on my new website And then. Lastly, eventually I want to bring a store into this website Right now. My online store is on a separate platform. It’s a completely different brand as well, but in the future I want to bring that in and have it all in one space. I’m not going to worry about that for now. However, So we’re just gon na focus on yeah the content and portfolio side of things. So with that in mind, let’s start planning, And the first thing I’m gon na do is write down on this page. Actually, I’m gon na write, content or hire me Cause. This is the two frames of mind of like what people are looking to do when they come to my website. As I see it, They’re either looking for content to learn about something from me or they’re like interested in hiring me for a certain thing. With those in mind, let’s start planning what pages I’m gon na need as part of the site. The first one is obviously a home page. I feel, like I,’m gon na want a page that’s like a content hub. So I’m just gon na write content That’ll be perhaps that’ll be some categories listed and, like suggested to you Almost like the playlist that I have on my YouTube channel. But instead of just being videos, there’ll be blogs and podcasts as well And then as part of content. I’m also going to need three different templates. Basically, I’m going to need audio video and written. I’m sure you’re wondering right now how I became a designer when I can’t even draw a box neatly, but hey That’s how it works. I’m also going to need my portfolio And in that I’m, going to have like an individual project. Obviously I’m going to need a template for that as well. Gon na add my speaking page in here as well. That I mentioned, Then there’ll be the basics that’s like an about page and a contact page too, probably Actually as part of contact. It would be a good idea for me to have a form on my website for my portfolio review series. I think Right now my instructions are for you to email me with a specific subject line and include the information you know in order for me to review your portfolio in that series that I do on YouTube. But not everyone uses the right subject line so it doesn’t go into like the right folder in my inbox and not everyone gives all the information that I need as well. So I think, having some sort of form on my website, where you can just fill in your details and submit that will make the whole process a lot easier for everyone involved, A page that’s quite highly visited on my website at the moment, thanks to A video that’s quite popular is where you can download my screen printing guide. Basically, it just has the video and a form, and that’s where you get the guide sent to you. So a lot of people come over from that video. I thought about having that page as part of this new website, but what I think I’m actually going to do is have screen printing as a category in my content here, so it’ll be like part of this, And that way the form will Be on that page for you to download and also see any like videos or blog posts or whatever that I’ve written about screen printing too. So, actually, as part of this kind of in between here, I should also put I’m just gon na. Add it next to it anyway, Like a category page Content page is like the home of all the content, and then a category page is that playlist. I think where it’s the audio video written Thinking more about this contact. Page too, I think I’m also going to have like a freelance form submission. So if there’s a project that you’re interested in me working on with you, you can fill this out with like information about the project. I’m also going to want, like a plain page template that I can pull out whenever I need to for giveaways. This is something that I like to do in the middle of logs every now, and then it’s just throw up a giveaway And to do that, I get people to fill in a form so that I can like pick the winner randomly from there. So yeah Plain page that I can just duplicate whenever and make a new giveaway will be really helpful. Thinking about what else is on my current website that I might want to bring over The only page that I really am not considering here and not adding in is my newsletter page, So I just have a page about signing up for my newsletter. I don’t think I’m gon na. Do that, because, to be honest, I haven’t been super regular with sending out a newsletter lately, and I think, instead of having newsletters like the reason for people to sign up, I instead would rather have a form on each content, category page that they can Fill in there to get a certain I don’t know PDF opt in something or other that I’ll create, And then they’ll. They can get emails about that particular topic in general and they’ll also be added to my list. If I do send a newsletter, I think that’ll be a better way of going about it than having a dedicated newsletter page. I think I should really move this. I don’t know how to move things in this app. So I’m just gon na erase it and write it again, But I think home should be seen as above all of these other things, Because my home page will be the hub of everything. Perhaps some things won’t be connected to home. Like I,’m gon na actually remove giveaways from that, But everything else, I think, will be coming from the home page and the home page will be designed to lead you into the right thing. With these two things in mind, in particular, content or hiring me as the main thing that you’re looking for, So that’ll be the first decision that I make someone make laughs, Make someone make when they come onto this page. It’s kind of like this is the content stuff. This is the hiring me stuff, and these two pages are kind of fitting with both Now this seems like a lot of work right Like that’s, a lot of pages that I need to design. So, to start with, to stop me from getting overwhelmed first, I’m actually going to just do an MVP of my homepage, So it won.’t have all of these sub pages. It will just be a homepage that links off to various things, So it needs to link off to my YouTube social media. I think I won’t have a contact form even on it. To start with, I’ll just have my email address, bio and maybe in place of building out a full portfolio. I’m going to have a link to my Dribbble on there and I will make sure I update that a little bit cause that’s also something I don’t do very often. So this way people will get access to my content. They will know how to contact me. They will learn a bit about me and see a bit of my work, But without me having to put in all the work of doing all these extra pages just yet So that means I can get my new site like up and running In designing this page. I guess I’ll be able to develop a design system for it and kind of like a brand for my website as well that’ll make it easier to design these other pages And just in general, I think it’ll be a good start To the project laughs, So that is my very messy plan for my website. It’s pretty simple, but it’s really good to do this. Thinking about what you might need, rather than getting halfway through like starting and then you know, the project keeps expanding from there, Especially this piece of figuring out what people are going to be coming to your site, for, I think, is really important to get down. So if you have a website project that you’re working on, I really encourage you to do this step. First, just to figure out exactly what pages are needed If you’re working with a client, you’re gon na need to do this anyway. To scope out the project and how much design work is gon na be involved for you, But it also just really helps me to see it and to know what work is coming and I’ll be able to like tackle these section by section. I think Hope you found this interesting to see anyway, and that was useful in some way to you And that you’re excited too about this new series of mine redesigning my website. I’m very excited about it and I’ve been talking about it for a long time and I think that making videos about it is going to actually finally help me get it done, because I’m gon na. Have you to keep me accountable. All right giggles That’s it for now Give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it Thanks for watching – and I’ll see you in the next one And I guess the next video will be the wireframing and possibly design of this MVP homepage. So, looking forward to seeing you then Bye
