At the first meeting you need to establish what needs to be done, roles and responsibilities, text content, images, etc.  Clients--be prepared!  Look over my web portfolio www.mcyoungwebdesign.com , browse other web sites in your line of business, tell me your likes and dislikes.

Think about how you are going to structure things. What is important? What is not? What needs to be on every page?

The web designer and the client get together to start planning the content - specifically the text. Content planning and writing is probably the biggest workload the client will have during the project - and it can really take some time.

While all this is going on, the web designer can be working on the base design - the homepage and main sub-level pages.

If you are local to Central or upstate New York, I can provide an excellent photographer.  If not, you need to e-mail me photos for your web site site.

The web designer can then begin to build the actual HTML pages.

When the base design is ready, the client needs to check that I am heading in the right direction and suggest adjustments to the design accordingly.  If you don't return my phone calls and e-mail, the project will come to a complete stand still.

…which will probably involve going back and tweaking things…

…until everyone is happy.

This process of work-feedback-rework is repeated at various stages in the project. Besides preparing the content, this confirmation process is also one of the main responsibilities of the client.