Website design and planning process - wireframe sketches

1. Discovery

Understanding your customers and their challenges

Every project starts with a plan. We’re trying to tell a story that leads to a conversion. To do that right, we need to understand your customers, their needs, and how you meet those needs. We’ll also dig into any technical questions at this stage.

Website design process - we start with sketch concepts in the studio

Kickoff Meeting

All the stakeholders sit down to discuss on your brand, customers, and conversion goals.

Planning your website design with wire frames and creative concepting

Internal Planning

We gather concepts and ideas for discussion and review the competitive landscape.

Information architecture includes a sitemap and wireframes

Sitemap and Wireframes

The team collaboratively plans a new design architecture.

How a logo is designed

2. Design

The visual communication system that defines your brand and leads to a conversion

The purpose of design is to communicate your brand identity, educate your customer, differentiate your offers, and compel your customers to convert.

Logo design for life sciences and technology company Pendar

Logo Identity

If you need a logo, we’ll design one with you. If your brand is established, we’ll follow your guidelines.

Website Design

We focus on your audiences, their needs, and your conversion goals.

Marketing Materials

Metropolis can design any support materials you need — from email design to annual reports. 

Custom wordpress and shopify development and coding

3. Development

Bringing our designs to life with cutting-edge development

We build responsive, SEO-friendly, content-managed websites that are easy to update and maintain. Many design agencies outsource their development, or repurpose a cheap, poorly-built theme, but our WordPress and Shopify themes are tailor made for our clients from the ground up.

No matter what CRM or email marketing provider you use, we can integrate it with your website. We have implemented dozens of custom API integrations with providers such as Salesforce, Pardot, Hubspot, Act-On, Klaviyo, Zaius, Google, and MailChimp.

Website wireframe design in our boston-based design studio

Responsive

Responsive coding should not be an add-on. All of our websites are designed and developed to work at every screen size on any device or browser.

CSS styling while we code a website in WordPress

Custom User Interface Design

Whether it’s a custom form, advanced search tool, large menu system, or custom e-commerce functionality, we build intuitive UI solutions that meet the needs of your customer.

Custom shopping cart design for shopify ecommerce site

Content Management

We specialize in building custom WordPress and Shopify themes. You can easily manage pages, forms, menus, and content yourself. We set you up for independence.

Website design process schedule

4. Launch

Proper planning ensures a smooth site launch

The process of launching a new website is painless when you have everything lined up in advance. Metropolis has launched over 100 websites. We begin compiling information as soon as we start working with you, and can guide you through decisions like choosing the right web host, whether you need a CDN, and best practices for SEO. We collaborate with shared Google Docs, Asana task management, and Slack for real-time communication.

Web hosting and DNS planning for web development

Web Hosting & DNS

We can recommend the best web host for your needs, or work with your existing provider. We also provide technical services like domain registration and DNS, and ongoing website maintenance.

Custom mobile navigation development and coding

Launch Checklist and QA Testing

We manage a comprehensive launch checklist from day one. Using a robust testing tool, we can see what your site looks like on any device with any browser and operating system.

API integrations with many CRM systems

Analytics & SEO

We install Google Tag Manager and Yoast SEO tools to get you started. Additional services such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, and Pardot can also be integrated into your site.

Interested in starting a conversation?

Tell us a little (or a lot) about what you’re looking for. We can answer any questions you have about our process, timing, and recommended next steps.

Use our project planner