I like to call it the MVP, the minimum viable product.
It is so much more important to get it out there than keep
tweaking with it behind the scenes and never publishing it.
And I think for two reasons, 1, you need it out there so people
can start finding you and two, tweaking with your website in
the beginning is not what you should be spending your time on.
I see people get hung up on their colors and their logos all
the time, and I truly do not think that your logo is going to
keep somebody from hiring you. And when you look at the way a
lot of logos are designed right now, there's a lot that are just
word marks where it's just text and there's no icon or image
that goes with it. So honestly, you can save
yourself some time and just write your name, you know of
your business up at the top of the website.
You're now listening to Design Curious, a place where you,
Creative one, are here to learn about what it really is like to
be an interior designer. And I'm your host and mentor,
Rebecca Ward. If you're worried about how to
succeed in a creative career, if you're ready to learn your next
steps to become an interior designer, and if you want the
satisfaction of doing something you love every day, you are in
the right place. Grab a coffee, a notebook, and
let's dig into today's episode. Hello and welcome to episode 194
of Design Curious podcast. Today on the podcast, we have
returning guest Robin White. She was way back on episode 50
and she's returned today to give us a lot more insight on
websites. But let me tell you, or remind
you about her, that she brings a rare fusion of strategy and
aesthetics to interior design websites.
A website designer who didn't follow the traditional path, she
began her career working at one of the most prestigious art
galleries in the world. She learned how the affluent
think, what they value and who they choose to work with.
In 2019, she founded RDW Design Studio where she combines that
luxury market expertise with digital strategy to help elevate
interior designers into the high end market via an online
presence that aligns with the clients, projects and
opportunities they deserve so they can step into their next
level of success. Robin has been featured by a
range of design industry resources from Business of Home
to High Point market. And I'm always love talking with
her. I've talked with her for
personal things from my on my own website and just connecting
her with other people in the industry.
And she's just so easy to talk with and get along with.
And I know you're going to love our second conversation and
you'll probably want to go and reach out to her too.
So let's talk with Robin. Hi Robin, welcome back to Design
Cares podcast. It's great to have you again.
Hi, Rebecca. It is so great to be back.
Thank you. Yeah, and it's like having a
friend come back because we've been chatting for my own
business on different things. And so I loved talking with you
and it's great to have you here to share with everyone else your
expertise. I'm really happy to be here.
Yeah, yeah. So today I thought it'd be great
for us to talk about what it's really like working with a
website designer. When do you need to do it?
Is the template going to work and the different levels?
And I'm coming to it because, you know, we recently had our
boot campers go through my laundry business boot camp, and
they're all starting out and starting their website.
And so these are questions too that they're asking like what
level of investment should I do and what do I need to know about
working with a website designer? So let's start there and talk
about what it's like to work with a website designer and
questions you should ask. Sure.
One thing that I think is really important for your listeners to
understand is that website designers like interior
designers, we're all really different.
We all include very different things.
We all work very differently. We all bring very different
skill sets to the table. And when you're thinking about
hiring a website designer, it can range anywhere from let's
say $500 to upwards of $50,000. And I think interior designers
would often say the same thing. So I, for example, will custom
quote all of my projects based on what different people need,
the functionalities they need, things like that.
So just kind of bear that in mind when you are looking at
different designers websites and thinking about having discovery
calls with them that they're all bringing different things to the
table. So when you think about question
that you should ask before hiring them, this is where
you're really going to be able to find out so much more about
them and whether it's going to be a good fit for you.
So I would say one of the most important questions is to ask
what platform do they work on? And the three big ones,
WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. There's also Shopify, if you
sell and then show it, it's become increasingly popular.
So if you have an idea of what platform you're familiar with.
So for example, if you did your own website on Squarespace and
you know how to use it and now you just want something that's
professionally designed, you might want to stay with
Squarespace. And then you need to be really
careful that the designers you're talking to actually work
in that platform. I personally only work in
WordPress, so I wouldn't be a good fit if they really wanted
Squarespace. But then the flip side of that
is that where you should be spending your time.
Should you be in your website all the time doing things or
should you leave that to your website designer to do so you
can focus on your clients and other marketing initiatives, in
which case then go ahead and hire them for whatever platform
they work on. So platform is super important.
I always suggest asking about their process because like
interior designers, you want your website designer to have a
process. It shows a lot of different
things. One, it shows they've done this
before, right? So they know what they're doing.
They're going to be the guide that's guiding you through this.
They should be taking charge. They should be letting you know
they have this four step process.
This is what's going to happen here.
I like all of my clients to know exactly what's going to happen
when, when they're going to be the most involved, when I'm
going to need them the most, when it's going to be the
quietest for them. And we actually plan a timeline
collaboratively. So I can say, well, normally
this would take six weeks, but what else do you have going on
during this time? Like are you going to High Point
Market? Are you going to Vegas market?
Do you have a big install? Do you have a family vacation
plan so that we can build out that timeline so that you're
never stressed. So that process is something
that you really want to ask about and find out about
timeline. That's really important.
How far out are they booking? Can they start your project
right away or do you have to wait three months before they
can start the project? And then once you start, how
long does the project take? And this is something that I
think is really important to think about because again, this
goes back to us all working differently.
So in their mind, do you give them all of your materials and
then the project starts. So you're kind of on your own to
do everything. Or are they working with you,
helping you with your photos, with your copy, with whatever
else they need for the website? And that's when the project
starts, then they start working with you, then they start the
design. So we all work a little
differently. So that's something really
important to find out. Are you getting a collaborative
partner who's going to be guiding you through everything
or you on your own and then submitting materials and then it
starts, right? What kind of testing do they do?
What happens when it's launched? What type of support is there
after launch? What kind of training is there?
Those are all questions to ask. What kind of information are
they going to need from you, right?
Do you have to write your own copy or are they writing it for
you? Is there a copywriter involved,
right, those kinds of things. And then obviously the cost and
exactly what's included with that.
So like I said, is branding included with that?
Is copywriting included with that?
Is SEO included with that, right?
So all of those different factors are going to impact the
timeline and the process and the cost, right?
Yeah, Yeah. I think probably a lot of people
would assume that the branding and the SEO and copyright would
be included if you're going to a website designer.
But it's not, it's common I think for those to be outsourced
by the designer or by the the client coming to like the
interior designer coming to them, so.
Yeah. Well, sometimes what happens
with me is a client will come to me and they have an existing
logo, color palette and typography that they really like
that a graphic designer did for them a couple of years ago, and
they want me to work with that. Sometimes that works, sometimes
that doesn't. It depends after we start
getting into strategy, whether that's truly representative of
them or not. But something that you'll find
is website design and graphic design are different skill sets.
So sometimes people can do both, sometimes not.
Generally speaking, you don't want your website designer
writing your copyright, just like you wouldn't want your
copywriter designing your website.
A website designer can tell you what kind of content the pages
need, but they might not be a wordsmith.
And then as far as SEO goes, there's lots of different
schools of thought about this, but generally speaking, website
design and SEO are two very different skill sets as well.
So depending on the skill set of the web designer that you work
with, they may offer foundational SEO in your website
build where they're taking care more of like technical things on
the back end and proper heading structure on the page, page
titles and meta descriptions. And then you might get someone
more like me who's also doing keyword research, research and
content optimization. So again, there's a a big
variance in terms of skill sets there.
Yeah. So it's good to pinpoint what
the scope of work would be by the website designer.
Do you think that for a chain of events coming to work with a
website designer, I mean, maybe you've thought that like, oh, I
need to rebrand and then the website will be a part of that.
And so they work with a branding specialist first before they
even meet a website designer. Do you think that that's OK?
Or should they in conjunction like be talking to a website
designer and a branding person at the same time?
I would say most of the time your website designer will be,
well, generally they're going to deal with brand strategy and
that's really the first step. So before you're hiring someone
who's going to work on any brand visuals for you, you really want
to work on your brand foundations, your brand
strategy. So that's really where you're
thinking about your mission, vision, goals, positioning,
messaging, ideal client differentiator, all of those
types of things. And you really have to have that
ironed out and clarity around those foundational elements of
your brand before you can start working on brand visuals.
Because let's think about it, depending on who your ideal
client is, and then depending on how you want people to feel when
they interact with your brand, you're going to select different
fonts and different colors based on that.
So an example is if your ideal client are single men, bachelors
in their 20s, pink is probably not a great brand color for you,
right? I'm just speaking very
generally. That may not resonate with that
target audience, right? And you're probably not going to
want a really girly type of font, right?
So you just want to think about that and then you know your
personality. Are you like buttoned up and
professional? Are you like fun and carefree
and whimsical? Like all of that needs to come
into play in your brand foundations And then that's
visually represented in your colors and your typography.
And then once that's ironed out, you can move on to logo
concepts. Then you can move on to writing
the words on your website so that your messaging is coming
across and then designing the website.
I would say often times, yes, they should all be together.
And a lot of the times your website designer is going to do
an enormous amount of strategy with you or they can't deliver a
website that's really going to function as a strategic
marketing tool for your business.
OK, that's good to know. So start with the website
designer. Generally speaking, I would say
yes, because if it's so I'll I'll use myself for as an
example. While I don't do the actual
graphic design of the logo, I do the brand strategy part and then
I don't do the writing. But I have a copywriter and a
graphic designer on my team. So if you come to me, you can
get it all in house, all under one umbrella.
We all work together. So I would say yes, that's
probably the best place to start.
And they would hopefully be very honest with you whether they can
tackle that entire project themselves or with team members.
Yeah. And it really correlates well to
interior design process as well, because we want the client to
start with the interior designer, not the contractor.
You know, so like, they could start with the contractor, but
the the contractor is not really going to be able to give them
accurate information until they've discovered what it is
their scope of work really needs to be after talking with the
designer. So yeah, it's very true, yeah.
Yeah. I found the more designers that
I work with, the more similarities there are between
our two industries in terms of how we really work and what the
process is. It's really interesting.
One example is when you guys present a design concept and
then the client disappears for a couple of weeks or something
before giving a response and it totally messes up the project.
And the same thing can happen with a website designer if a
client disappears and doesn't give you their materials, right?
So it's a lot of similarities. Yeah, OK.
Well, that's really good information to know where to
start. I didn't start that way at all.
Of course. This is like, you know, we're
going on like 19, you know, 18 years ago when I actually did
make my website and I feel like there's a lot less online
resources than there are now 18 years ago.
So I just kind of picked a template that came with, you
know, as Google or Microsoft or something like that.
And I just, they had a photo of a chair.
So I plugged that in. And then, but I mean, at the
time there was a not a lot of competition for interior design
websites. I was one of the few that
actually had a website, probably because I was younger and all
the experienced designers really maybe had a landing page, but
that was it. They still use the Yellow Pages
and you know. So things have changed a lot,
but needless. A lot has changed, yes.
It took me a long time to actually work with a website
designer and when I finally did, I really appreciated what they
brought to the table. And just as personal, no, I have
a band with my husband. And so I created like a little
mini website just at a page so that we can like update our show
dates and playlist and everything like that.
And so I chose WordPress because that's the platform that my
business website is on. And I just tried to use a
template from WordPress and it was so frustrating without
having all the usual things set up that the website designer had
done for me. So even using a template with
that was I'm like, this is not really worth it having to get
someone else to do it. But but I didn't really want to
spend that much money on it just needs to be like a little, you
know, free. Sure.
But yeah. So anyway, website designers,
what I'm trying to say is like worth every penny.
And so, but maybe we could talk a little bit about templates and
when it's right to use a template if you're starting now
or not, or what's your take on that?
Yeah. So my opinion is when you're
first starting out, so let's say your first two or three years,
there's a lot of things that you're still figuring out, still
learning. And I don't recommend investing
in a custom website at that stage.
And the reason is that most likely within those first two
years, everything's going to change.
Because of that, I sometimes think it's easier just do a logo
on Canva, pick some colors and some fonts, and find a template
that you like and have a web presence because it's incredibly
important to be taken seriously nowadays.
You need a website, but I wouldn't spend a ton of time
obsessing over it because in the beginning it's more important
that you're getting your networking and your marketing
and you're getting the word out and you're getting clients and
you're working on projects that you have them for your
portfolio, right? And then figuring out who is it
that your ideal client is, what are the services that you
actually want to offer? Because you can start out saying
XYZ is your ideal client and 2 1/2 years later it's ABC.
And you can say you offer 123 as your services and then a year
and a half in, you hate 2:00 and 3:00 and you're just focusing on
one and you're going to offer four as well, right?
So all of that changes. And when all of that
foundational stuff changes, you're going to need a new
website, right? Because nothing about that
original 1 is really going to be representative of you anymore.
That's when it's then time to invest in going custom.
So in the beginning, I think a template can be a really great
way to have a website that's been professionally designed at
least so it doesn't look too DIY.
The great thing about templates is the budget is going to be
less, the timeline is going to be shorter.
Those are two really big things when you need something quickly
and you haven't gotten a lot of clients under your belt, so you
don't have a lot of money to spend.
Yeah, when it's not appropriate is when you are established and
you know who your brand is because the template is
essentially, you know, it's kind of set so there's less
manipulating that you can do. A custom site's going to be
designed very specifically to you and your ideal client and
the customer journey that you want to take them on.
So a template is a great a great starting point.
OK, great. Yeah.
And I know from talking with a lot of new designers in business
that it's really hard for them to publish their first website,
I think without it being perfect and the way they went, like the
little minor details can be holding them back from
publishing it. You know, I always encourage
them just get it out there, you know, 80% better than not at all
and so. Would you agree with that and do
you have any recommendations for people struggling with that?
You agree 100% with that? I like to call it the MVP, the
minimum viable product. It is so much more important to
get it out there than keep tweaking with it behind the
scenes and never publishing it. And I think for two reasons, 1,
you need it out there so people can start finding you.
And two, tweaking with your website in the beginning is not
what you should be spending your time on, right?
I see people get hung up on their colors and their logos all
the time. And I truly do not think that
your logo is going to keep somebody from hiring you.
And when you look at the way a lot of logos are designed right
now, there's a lot that are just word marks where it's just text
and there's no icon or image that goes with it.
So honestly, you can save yourself some time and just
write your name, you know of your business up at the top of
the website. You can easily go on Pinterest
or Google and find font pairings.
Like in the beginning. This just shouldn't be what
matters, right? What's much more important is
how you are presenting your work and the quality of your photos
of your work that people are really going to notice much more
and how you are sharing your story and the messaging that
you're getting across. So I would say if there's
anything that you're going to be nitpicking, it should be the
words almost and your images more than anything else in the
beginning. OK, that's good to know.
Yeah. And what if they don't have a
lot of images? So I always will recommend
designers like get some flat lays, do a corner of your house
and get like a photographer to come in and just pay for those
professional looking photos, even if it's not a whole project
that you've worked on. But do you have any other advice
for people that might not have a big portfolio yet?
Yeah, it's a great question and it's one that I hear a lot.
I agree with you about their own homes.
You, you designed your home and even if you didn't do the whole
home or a whole room, like you said, set up a beautiful area in
a room and you don't need a full room shot.
Have a professional photographer come in and get those detail
shots if possible. I think it's really important to
have it done professionally. You can tell the difference
immediately between an iPhone photograph and a professional
photograph. The other thing is, like you
said, flat lays, mood boards, renderings.
Yeah, in the beginning. And I don't think you need to
lie about the fact that you're a new business, right?
Get photos of you, hire a professional photographer, do a
brand photo shoot and get shots of you in action.
So arranging a floral arrangement on a dining room
table, arranging decor on a bookshelf, looking through tile
samples, fabric samples, paint samples, whatever it is, things
like that you in action. Those can be photos that you can
use on your website until you build up your portfolio.
And frankly, in the very beginning, you can go without a
portfolio page if you need to just have home about services
and contact portfolio, right. Coming soon.
Yeah, people will understand as long as there's some photos that
you can show them of work that you've done.
Yeah, yeah. And I also think you can make up
projects and do mood boards and renderings and flat lace for
them. And then what you can have in
your portfolio is coming soon. Yeah, OK, with a photo.
Yeah. And I, I think that's where a
lot of people might be hesitant because they're like, I don't
want to show that I'm so inexperienced.
But at the same time, you, you kind of want that transparency
as well, because you don't want your client to expect that
they're, you know, getting someone with 10 years of
experience when they're not. And so I think that clients
would appreciate that transparency and understand
that, you know, you're just starting out and some clients
are looking for that. They're looking for that new
designer because probably you're charging a little bit less and
they're willing to take the risk of you learning through the
process and that's totally fine. So I think that does hold people
back, the fact that they don't have a portfolio.
Yeah, I think it shouldn't hold you back.
And the other thing is, you know, a lot of times it'll be a
designer who possibly worked for another firm for 15 years and
just doesn't have work that they can share because it was under
another firm's name. And that's something you can
probably creatively get across on your about page.
You know that you have all of this experience that you just,
and in a discovery call that you just started out on your own.
Maybe there is a way that some photos of projects that you
worked on with that other firm can be shown in person in a
consultation where is you're not able to share those online on
your website or in your social media.
So I think there's some some ways around it, but I always
think being honest and transparent is way better than
using stock photos. That's misrepresenting because
people will automatically assume that it's your work and it's
not. OK.
Yeah, that was my next question was, is it appropriate to use
stock photos for anything on your website?
I am not a fan of designers doing that because even if
you're using it on pages that are not portfolio, your
portfolio page or a project page, I think it's just a given
that people assume all the photos on the website are your
work. OK.
So to me it's a little misleading.
The other thing is if you're going to free stock photo sites,
I think you need to be really careful because a lot of times
those photos are familiar. We've seen them before.
And then think about like, what sort of message does that send?
If a potential client comes to your website and sees a
photograph that they've seen somebody else using on social
media, that makes them immediately question and
possibly distrust you or both designers, right?
Yeah. So I just don't think it's a
good idea. I'd rather see less.
OK, we talked about renderings are OK, like if you create
through SketchUp or something. But what about like AI generated
renderings that might be, you know, just through ChatGPT or?
Something I think that we're moving there and I don't
necessarily have an issue with that.
If you've given chat all of the instructions and the prompts
about how to do it, it's essentially something that
you've created. So I do think we're going to see
a lot more people using AI to generate renderings.
It can be done so much more quickly, right?
So I think while now renderings can be really difficult or very
expensive to outsource, so they're not always included as
part of the designers process. With the rise of AI and it being
able to create these for you that are looking really good, I
think there's going to be more and more of those.
It's going to become a bit more the norm than the exception.
OK, yeah. And I think it probably, you
know, you could show the renderings, but also noting that
it's an inspiration design or something like it's not supposed
to be a photo realistic project like that.
You don't try to pretend that you've done the work when you
have it, you know, Right. OK, that's good to know.
I think those are all really good points.
What else should we be mindful of as we are working with a
website designer? Yeah.
So one thing I think you should really think about when you are
looking to hire 1 is take a close look at their website and
look at their portfolio. We all have our own styles, same
way interior designers have their own styles.
And yes, we can design for specific brands and specific
kinds of target audiences and things, but our underlying style
will most likely peek through in every website.
So you want to make sure that you're really looking at the
work that the website designer has done and that there's
something about it that resonates with you, that you
really like knowing that they're capable of doing something
different. But this is just generally what
their sites look like. So take a look at those and if
you can actually visit the live site, a lot of times they'll
have project pages that will have screenshots and then links
to the live site. Go take a look at that, see how
it works on different devices and see how quickly it loads and
you know the functionality of it so you really know what they're
capable of delivering. I think that's really important.
And then I think it's really important to spend time on that
initial discovery call and to have a second one if necessary
so that you can get a really good feel for their personality.
Because if you're doing a custom project, it's going to be
several months that you'll be working together.
So personality matters. You want to make sure you
actually like this person. You know that you can see
yourself actually working with them for an extended period of
time, like watch how they communicate because that's
probably how they're going to communicate throughout the
project. OK, right.
So, you know, there's some web designers who will probably
never get on a Zoom call. They want to do everything via
e-mail, you know? So is that the way you want to
work or not? So those kinds of things you
should really think about. Like personally, I always ask
that everything's done in e-mail so that I have a record of
everything and I can refer back to things.
All of our calls are on Zoom, so I can see you, right?
So it's more personal to me than phone.
I tend not to check my phone during the day, but I let my
clients know that so they know if you need me quickly, like
e-mail me because I check that I don't look at my texts during
the day, like my phone's on silent, right?
So make sure that they know how to communicate how they work
with you so that you can make sure that's in line with how you
like to work as well. OK, that's a really good point.
Yeah. And then what do we need to know
about the after work on the website?
So once it's launched and published and everything, the
website designers typically set it and forget it or are they
hands on to help update as you need or is there, are there
different? I'm sure everyone offers
something different, but. I think everyone's a little
different and I think a lot of it also depends on the platform.
So Squarespace and Wix are simpler, more all in So chances
are, generally speaking, if you have a Squarespace or a Wix
website, Squarespace and Wix are taking care of the security,
they're taking care of software updates, things like that, so
that you don't have to do that. And generally speaking, adding
photos to your website, creating new pages is going to be a much
more simple process. With WordPress, as you know,
Rebecca, it is open source rather than a closed platform.
And with that gives you an enormous amount of control over
everything. We get to choose our own host.
We can move our website to another host whenever we want
to. So we have a lot more
flexibility, customization, control over things.
With that control comes responsibility.
So we're actually responsible for the security of our website
for the software updates. And most WordPress website
designers will offer some type of monthly care plan, monthly
maintenance plan where they take care of that for the client.
So you don't have to worry about that.
So Ioffer that to my clients where I do weekly updates, I
monitor the security, I monitor the uptime, things like that.
So you're basically paying for Peace of Mind.
You don't have to think about it.
You know that your website is up and running and it's secure.
And then generally speaking with WordPress, it depends whether
you decide you want to learn how to add new pages and add new
photos or whether you have a relationship with your web
designer where you can go to them and they take care of all
of that for you. So the majority of my clients
are established interior designers.
They've been in business for quite a while.
They're very busy. The last thing they want to do
is log into their website, learn how to use it and add new
project pages to it. So they generally come to me.
I do design days so I can turn everything around in a day for
them, make it nice, simple and easy.
I have a couple of clients who have more active websites where,
you know, I'm doing things on a weekly basis in terms of content
for them. So it totally depends on the
designer and on the client what their needs are going to be.
But I would say generally speaking, I like to develop long
term relationships with my clients.
I've had several who've come to me for a redesign.
They might have been one of my early clients and you know, it's
three or four years later and lots of things have changed and
they want to redesign and a rebrand.
So I love that, you know, get to work with someone who I already
have a established relationship with.
That's wonderful. Right.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So I hope that helps answer that question.
Yeah, for sure. Well, Robin, this has been
really great talking with you and getting all this information
again, like you've been so helpful.
Always good to have you on and let's remind everybody where
they can find you. Oh sure.
So the best place to find me is my website and that is
rdwdesignstudio.com and then I'm also on Instagram.
That's the social media platform I'm most active on and that is
our DW Design Studio. Feel free to follow, reach out
and say hello. Perfect.
We'll put those links in the show notes, and thank you for
coming on today. Maybe we'll have you back again
in a couple years and then there'll be new things to talk
about, I'm sure. Always new things.
Thank you so much for having me on Rebecca.
It was really a treat. All right, so reach out to Robin
if you're interested in getting your website updated.
I love that she specializes in interior design websites and she
knows exactly what we need to communicate and so you're in
good hands with her. Before we leave today, I need to
remind you we've got webinars coming up, so June 10th and then
I'm going to do it again June 24th.
These are live teachings that I'll be doing and we'll be
answering the question, Are you ready to start your interior
design business and how much is it going to cost?
Like how much money do you need to start a business?
So we're going to answer those questions for you in the
webinar. Those free teachings you can
sign up for June 10th. June 24th has coming up.
Also, doors are open right now for boot camp.
I'd love to see you in there if you know that you are ready to
start your entire design business.
So in eight weeks we're going to get you going from dreaming to
designing all set up legitimate, the right way, all the i's
dotted and the T's crossed and you're ready to go.
It's such a great offering honestly for everyone has gone
through it and it's just like a real quick, I mean, you have to
do a lot of work like you have to roll up for your sleeves and
get it done. But you are ready to go and take
on your first clients this fall. So if that excites you, then
sign up for boot camp. And of course, my design mentor
is always here for you. If you want to work with me
online one-on-one through coaching calls or through more
learnings that I have for you in that program, then sign up for
them. OK.
All the links can be found in the show notes.
And that is all I have for you today.
Next week we'll have another great episode and until then,
stay creative. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website rawarddesign.com or e-mail me at
podcast@rawarddesign.com.