How it works
You do not need to arrive with a technical brief or know how the website should be built. Start by telling us about your business or organisation, where you are now and what you want the website to achieve. From there, we work out what needs to be done, agree it with you before work begins, build the site, let you review the real thing, and then take it live.
From first conversation to live website
A small website and a complex one may need very different amounts of work, but the process should still feel clear. You know what we are doing, what we need from you and what happens next.
Understand
We start with what you are trying to achieve.
Before talking about pages or technology, we need to understand the business or organisation behind the website. We look at what you do, who you need to reach, what visitors need to be able to find or do, and what is getting in the way today. If you already have a website, we review what is there. If you have existing branding, content or photography, we look at what can be carried forward. This is also where we identify anything the site may need beyond the ordinary — another language, several locations, local pricing or more specialised content.
Scope
We agree what is being built before we build it.
Once the need is clear, we turn it into an agreed piece of work. The scope sets out what the website will include, what Provelopment will do, what we need from you, what existing material will be reused or reworked, and what happens around launch. Straightforward work can often be defined clearly from the beginning. More variable work is reviewed and quoted individually. Either way, you know what has been agreed before the work starts.
Build
We turn the agreed plan into a working website.
The website is built on Provelopment Foundation and shaped around your business or organisation. That includes the structure, pages, content, branding, imagery, navigation and presentation across desktop, tablet and mobile. We also handle the fundamentals that help people and search engines understand the site: clear page structure, useful titles and descriptions, and sensible links between pages. If the agreed work includes more advanced needs — such as several languages, multiple locations or local market information — they are built into the site here rather than added as an afterthought.
Review
You see the real website before your visitors do.
You review the working site itself, not a static picture of what it might become. You can read the content in context, move through the pages, see how it behaves on different screens and check that it represents you properly. We make the corrections and changes covered by the agreed review process before the site is approved for launch.
Launch
We take the finished website live on your domain.
Once the agreed work is ready and approved, the website is prepared for launch and the public pages are checked. If hosting is part of the service, we take care of that as well. If you already have a domain, we work with it rather than asking you to start again unnecessarily. At the end of the process, you have a live website ready for real visitors.
Continue, or hand it over
What happens after launch is your choice.
Provelopment can continue hosting and looking after the site, making updates and improvements as your needs change. Or you can manage it yourself, work with your own developer, or move to another provider. Choosing ongoing service now does not take away your ability to choose differently later.
After launch, you decide how much help you want
Launching the website does not mean committing to one way of managing it forever. You can keep the technical work off your hands, or take more control yourself.
Continue with Provelopment
If you would rather concentrate on the business or organisation, we can keep looking after the website. Managed service can begin at launch or later.
- Hosting and keeping the site available
- Updating pages and content when something changes
- Adjusting navigation, structure and presentation as you grow
- Routine maintenance and keeping the website current
- Ongoing improvements to the site itself
Run it independently
If you prefer to manage the site yourself, or already have somebody you trust, that is a normal option.
- Host and manage the website yourself
- Work with another developer or provider
- Keep using Provelopment Foundation as the open-source platform underneath it
- Take your site-specific content, branding and setup with you
Ongoing management is a service you can choose, not a requirement for keeping control of the website.
Built to leave you in control
A good service relationship should make staying easy, not leaving difficult. The way Provelopment sites are built is designed to leave you with practical choices after launch.
Your website is not trapped in a closed builder
Your site-specific content, branding and setup travel with the website rather than existing only inside an account that one provider controls.
The foundation underneath is open source
Provelopment Foundation is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, so the platform underneath the site can be used, changed and hosted independently of Provelopment.
Ongoing management remains optional
You can ask us to keep hosting, maintaining and improving the website for as long as that is useful. If your needs change, the website is not designed to prevent you changing the arrangement with it.
The scope keeps expectations clear
Before work starts, we agree what is being built, what is included and what each side needs to provide. If the work changes, we agree the change rather than quietly changing the job underneath you.
Ready to work out what your website needs?
You do not need to prepare a specification before taking the next step. Start with the situation you are in now — a first website, an old one that needs replacing, a site that needs to grow, or a website you would rather somebody else looked after. The Services page will help you find the closest starting point.