Skout Media
Discovery Call
Hello there!👋
Thanks for taking the time to meet with our team and considering us for your project.
Tell me a little about you and your company. I’d love to know:
- Tell me a little about yourself. Where you’re from, what you do for fun, your favorite candy bar, etc.
- Tell me a little about your company. How’d it start, what sets it apart, what’s your next significant milestone?
- What are you hoping to accomplish in this call?
Key Insights
What’s Important For a Website?
Our first step is to ensure we agree on what’s most important for your project.
What's most important to your company?
When we work with clients, there are generally two key things they’re concerned about:
- Website Design – the way the site looks and reflects the brand.
- Cost of the Service – the cost to build, maintain, and update the site long-term.
Would you say there's anything missing that you'd consider a top concern for your company?
What's most important to your visitors?
Yet, when designing a site, we’ve found that things matter differently to visitors (the people actually using your site). They care most about three things on the site in this order:
- Speed – your site needs to be fast.
- Functionality – your site needs to solve their problem.
- Design – your site needs to look professional.
If your website doesn't meet your visitor's standards for speed, functionality, and design, it's not a matter of whether you are losing money—it's a matter of how much.
What does the Research Say is Important for Your Website?
There are three things research shows to be essential.
Speed
According to Google, the best page load speed is two seconds or less. Google’s research shows that delays longer than two seconds can result in up to 87% abandonment rates.
If load times exceed 3 seconds, visitors form a “negative perception” of the brand and may tell their family and friends about their poor perception when talking about the brand.
Functionality
No one cares about your company. They care about themselves and the problems that you solve for them. So, how do you build a client-centric site? It is easy. You prioritize the visitor’s needs over your wants. If the site frustrates the client, you've already lost.
You also have to prioritize social proof. According to University of Texas research, when undecided customers see positive feedback from people like them, it reduces their perceived risk and encourages them to engage with your business.
Design
Modern consumers simply expect a well-designed site. According to Stanford University research, 46.1% of people say a website’s design is the top criterion for deciding a company's credibility.
Case Studies
Tell us if this sounds familiar…
The Vegas Chamber of Commerce was stuck in a frustrating cycle with their website. It was disorganized and outdated, lacked a clear purpose, and had far too many pages (over 60) and countless plugins (many of which were redundant) without a cohesive strategy. Staff spent countless hours trying to manage content, troubleshoot issues, keep things up to date, and make updates, but without guidance or support, every change felt like a battle. Worse, the poor user experience left their clients confused and disengaged, undermining the Chamber’s mission to support local businesses.
The team’s lack of a strategic plan or expert support left them spinning their wheels, costing them way more time and money than they initially realized. With no reliable support when things broke, they often had to divert personnel from more critical tasks to fix the site. These unrealized revenue and productivity costs added up, while the outdated design and clunky and confusing onboarding experience cost them new members.
Or maybe your experience is more like this…
Wow Carwash struggled to keep their website running smoothly, but the deeper they dove, the more problems they uncovered. Their site was a tangled mess, with WordPress’s organizational structure misused to the point of chaos. Redundant and unused plugins—nearly 80 in total—clogged the system, drastically slowing down the site’s performance. Page load times were very slow, leaving a poor impression and driving potential business elsewhere.
Adding new content made the problem worse without a clear strategy or support. Managing content and updates became a time sink, with no one confident enough to streamline the clutter or take decisive action. The outdated design and sluggish user experience didn’t just frustrate customers—it drained staff productivity, with countless hours wasted trying to put out fires instead of focusing on growing the business.
The Solution
Is There a Better Way?
If the stories above sound familiar, we’ve got good news. The solution to these problems (and others) isn’t too tricky. It just requires a different, more intentional way of thinking about your website.
You start by defining how your business generates revenue, then align how you generate revenue with what your audience wants. When your audience’s needs align with your generating revenue, we’ve achieved focus, which becomes the basis of the entire site build.
With that clear focus in mind, you design a fast, functional, and professional site that drives your audience to do exactly what you want them to do – which happens to be precisely what they want to do!
Once the design is approved, you develop the rest of the site, add copy, hook up your integrations, and then optimize for all devices, speed, and SEO.
Finally, you launch your new site, and you’re done, right? Not quite. You can’t forget to prioritize maintenance, or all your hard work will deteriorate, and you’ll return to where you started. Maintenance includes more than just the technical stuff. You also have to work to maintain the focus, or your site will begin to add more and more unhelpful content, making it less and less effective.
Where do we fit in to all this? It’s simple. Because we saw these trends over and over, we developed and refined the process below based on the key insights and solutions above. As a result, we’ve been able to help our clients design, develop, and maintain fast, functional, and professional sites that are ready to do exactly what they’re supposed to do – make and save you money.
The Process Our Clients Love
We keep you moving forward in four distinct stages. Each has weekly action steps to keep us on track to launch on time. Once finished, we stand behind our work and, through our maintenance plans and ongoing relationship, ensure that the finished product is exactly what you need to be successful long-term.
Project Research
We’ll work together to get to the bottom of what will make the perfect site for your needs.
Design & Revisions
We’ll get straight to work and check in with you along the way to get feedback to ensure all is perfect.
Develop & Optimize
Almost there! With an approved design, we’ll build the rest of the site and optimize it.
Launch & Maintain
3…2…1… we’re go for launch! Then we maintain the same focus and performance we had on day one.
Project Timeline
The Timeline
Below is the proposed timeline for your project. This timeline is subject to your approval of your proposal and our current workload. This process begins when you sign your proposal and submit your deposit.
Setting the Stage | Week 0
Primary Objective: Gather the Team and Set Expectations
We’ll gather our team with yours to get everyone on the same page. During this meeting, we’ll cover:
- The initial transfer process (domain, email, etc.)
- The tools we’ll use to collaborate
- Who the decision maker is on your team
- Our team’s expectations to keep the project moving quickly and efficiently
- Set a weekly meeting (30 minutes or less) for accountability and deadlines
Transfer & Infrastructure | Week 1
Primary Objective: Transfer Existing Site to Skout Media Servers & Establish Infrastructure
Once we’re all on the same page, we’ll transfer your site to our servers. Even before we build the new site, we’ll set up your maintenance plan and optimize the old site to improve load time. We’ll also get access to any third-party systems to begin optimizing them. This process generally takes 24 hours but can take up to 72 hours to propagate fully. To accomplish this, we’ll need the following:
- Site URL
- WordPress Admin Login URL
- WordPress Admin Username & Password
- The name of your email provider (Google, Microsoft, etc.)
- All DNS records for 3rd party services like plugins & email
Design All Templates | Week 2-3
Primary Objective: Design all Pages and Post Templates
Using the branding elements you provided, we’ll design the home page and the other necessary page templates to complete the site. Once these designs are approved, we’ll begin applying them to all the pages on the site. Approving the templates before building out all the pages will significantly increase the pace of the next stage.
Develop Full Site | Week 4-5
Primary Objective: Develop the Rest of the Site and Add all Copywriting
Using the approved page templates, we’ll develop the entire site on a subdomain so your existing site will stay active. Once one section is built, we’ll work with you to finalize copywriting while working on the next section. This fluid process ensures a fast development timeline.
From start to finish, it generally takes between 3-7 weeks to get a new site live. The timing largely depends on how quickly you respond to communication and provide the resources we need to complete your project.
Audit & Optimize | Week 6
Primary Objective: Optimize the Site for All Devices, Speed, & SEO
Once the site is fully developed, all copyrighting has been added, & everything is approved, we’ll go over everything with a fine-tooth comb (and invite you to do the same) to ensure everything works exactly as it should. We’ll also optimize the whole site from top to bottom for different screen sizes, speed, & SEO. Included in the optimization are the following:
- Featured Images for all Pages
- Meta-data for all Pages & Images
- Site Cache Optimization
- Server Cache Optimization
- Image Minification & Optimization
- Video Compression & Optimization
- Mobile Device Optimization
Launch & Learn | Week 7
Primary Objective: Launch Your New Site and Learn to Make Updates
Once the audit and optimization are complete, we’ll assign the usernames and passwords for those who need access to your site and teach your team how to use your new site before launching.
We’ll also connect Google Analytics and set that up for you. As needed, we’ll continue to teach your team how to use your site after launch.
We’ll also be on-call to address any issues that arise post-launch for the first few weeks.
Maintenance | Ongoing
Primary Objective: Keep Your Site Performing Optimally
We will send you a Maintenance Report consistent with your plan outlining what was done to keep your site running
optimally. You will also see various site metrics included based on your needs.
Your Investment
Your Investment
When our clients ask what our service costs, they don’t expect us to tell them that we’ll save them money and increase their sales by driving more customers to their business from the site.
From our research, our enterprise clients were spending, on average, 1-3 hours per week per site to save money on their websites. They worked fruitlessly to improve site speed by Googling different methods and strategies that didn’t work.
They updated plugins, themes, and WordPress weekly, fixed issues when the site broke or went down entirely, waited on hold with customer support to fix problems that were above their level, and struggled to update more complex content, such as adding new content and functionality.
The time staff spent on the site was a massive waste of company resources. One of our recent enterprise clients with four sites estimated the cost of their staff working on their sites at $700/month in payroll, and the results they were getting on their own were, in their words, “sub-par at best.”
Their money-saving efforts cost them way more than they realized. Our solutions take that burden off our clients while putting costs simultaneously. Instead of increasing costs, we save you money and time.
Investment Breakdown
Site Migration, Nameserver Configuration, DNS Record Configuration, Email Setup, developing site map for easy and obvious navigation, main call to action. Site build for up to 20 pages. Up to 5 forms. Copywriting help on all pages.
Ultra-fast hosting, up to .5 GB storage space, SSL Certificate & CDN Network, Lite speed optimization, Monthly site backups, Monthly performance monitoring, Monthly plugin updates, 1 Maintenance report monthly, and Lite support.
Ultra-fast hosting, up to 1.5 GB storage space, SSL Certificate & CDN Network, plus speed optimization, Simple analytics report, Premium video hosting, Weekly security monitoring, Weekly site backups, Weekly performance monitoring, Monthly plugin updates, 2 Maintenance reports monthly, Plus support.
Ultra-fast hosting, up to 3 GB storage space, SSL Certificate & CDN Network, pro speed optimization, Detailed analytics report, Premium video hosting, 24/7 Uptime monitoring, Broken link monitoring, SEO monitoring, Daily security monitoring, Daily site backups, Daily performance monitoring, Weekly plugin updates, 4 Maintenance reports monthly, up to 1 subdomain, priority support.
Ultra-fast hosting, up to 10 GB storage space, SSL Certificate & CDN Network, pro speed optimization, Detailed analytics report, Premium video hosting, 24/7 Uptime monitoring, Broken link monitoring, SEO monitoring, Daily security monitoring, Daily site backups, Daily performance monitoring, Weekly plugin updates, E-commerce tools and reports, Membership site support, SEO consulting and reports, Split testing tool access, Thrid-party tool integration, 4 Maintenance reports monthly, up to 1 subdomain, priority support.
NEXT STEPS & FAQ
Next Steps
We like keeping things simple, so getting started with us is easy. Just complete the steps below before your proposal expires, and we’ll get right to work!
1. Sign Project Proposal
We use a simple electronic signature process to make things simple for everyone.
2. Pay Project Deposit
You’ll be directed to pay your deposit via ACH when you sign your project proposal.
3. Schedule First Meeting
You’ll be directed to pay your deposit via ACH when you sign your project proposal.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Skout Media?
We're a skilled team of designers and coders who serve clients with web design and development, branding design, and site maintenance. Since 2019, we've built and maintained countless kick-ass sites that save and make our clients money.
How Do You Help Clients?
Investing in a website should increase your bottom line over time. To ensure we don't waste your money, we focus on the things that matter most: site speed, function, and design.
By combining our expertise with the right strategy, we save our clients time and money while outperforming their previous results.
Does Website Design include ongoing Site Maintenance or changes?
Our website design services include 30 days of support after launch. We also offer site maintenance plans to keep your site running as smoothly as the day we built it.
What are the benefits of the site maintenance plan?
With our site maintenance plan, you get ultra-fast hosting at a great price and peace of mind, knowing the people who built your site are keeping it running smoothly.
You can explore all the benefits of our site maintenance plans to see for yourself.