My own website is one of those perennial problems; client project work comes first so your own website goes to the end of the queue. But that’s not the full story; re-doing your website means that you’ve got to ask yourself some fundamental questions. I relish asking these questions to clients and putting them on the spot; because I know that only in doing so will we arrive at the kernels of truth. And around this truth we can build an effective web presence. Asking yourself those hard questions is a different matter though.

In the beginning…

I wish I had screen shots of some of the older Jojet websites – even back in the days when I did all the design & build! If we looked at these websites back to back what we would see is a progression to a more personal offering; less corporate; less saying “we” when you mean “I” (unless you DO mean we). More about yourself. More about the story.

Making the website personal does not work for everyone but it does for me. Jojet is really only one person (moi) but I have a flexible team of highly talented freelancers who help deliver projects. I also work with associates such as Russell Britton who I collaborate with on relevant projects. I’m a firm believer in “people buy from people” so why not get people to buy into you via your website? The obvious retort is “what if they don’t like the look of you?!‘ – fine, better them find that out from a website without wasting both your time in a meeting.

Anyway, I think I’m waffling, without further ado let’s have a look at what direction we are currently going…

Working design for Jojet website

I wanted something which is more content focused* and more type focused. One reason is that I’m getting more content focussed in general; indeed, this here blog will be swallowed up into the new website – I no longer see any reason to keep the blog as a separate island of articles.

(Note: sharp eyed amongst you may guffaw at this due to the lorem ipsum text. Rest assured that there is a Google Doc of amended copy which I’m working on).

Oh, and that IS an old photo of me. The more recognisable bearded me will be on the new website, that one is just being used as a place holder.

You’re not seeing all the homepage here; just a taster. There will be defined areas on there to appeal to the target audiences (actually, part of that is there) as well as areas to communicate my key services/products and case studies.

WordPress

For the first time the website will be powered by WordPress. This makes sense because of the blog integration but I do also want quicker control over all the website content. The design will be bespoke and responsive to different screen sizes.

Anyway, it’s a work in progress but I’m really excited about the direction. Lots of shoe gazing to occur before this goes live but it will indicate a slight change in direction in 2013. Onwards and upwards as they say