To begin, I am talking about an outside provider, while some of this may apply to an in-house designer, that will not be the focus of this post.
First and foremost, make sure you understand what you have signed up for and ideally before you have signed up for it.
Hopefully you have signed up with someone you feel comfortable with email or calling when you have questions or changes you would like to make to the website. If you don’t, I recommend that you make sure you have ownership and access to your domain name and dns settings so you can find a new person/company to work with.
If you are just switching providers, but are happy with the look of the site you have, then simply let the new company now along with anything you do want to tweek.
If you are doing a facelift, new or entire change to a website, then the easiest first step is to look or save the links of websites that you do like the style. Also note what you like about them, so that way your first mockup will be as close to your preference and final product as possible.
Gather Graphics/Photos:
This will be very helpful for giving your new site a look that is all yours. While generic images can be found online, You really do want to use your own graphics and photos as much as possible. If you are a service provider that can do before/after photos or a restaurant that can take pictures of their dishes, or a good photo of the location.
To help the seo and the person processing the files, I recommend that you name the files so it is easy to know what it is. As an example, if it is a before picture for a house being painted, then name the file “house_painting_before” or “eugene_oregon_home_paint_before”. Now if you are going to have a lot of these, you may need to include an address or something that pairs them like “123_house_painting_before” and “123_house_painting_after.”
Good visuals really to make or break the look of a website.
Written Content:
Description of what you do and why is important in filling out the information on your website. You can also record your voice and have the service provider transcribe the info, although if you do this, it is highly recommended that you do them in small precise files instead of a long rambling.
Organize the content:
We also recommend that you organize the content by page.
I have even had people sketch out the page and layout of what they would prefer. Yes, it is always very basic and stick figury, but that is fine. It still gives a rough visual that most people find easier than describing it in the written word.
Notes by page, device and browser:
While it is important to give notes of what gets missed or looks different or broken, designers tools don’t always mimic the real world. That is why it is important to provide the specifics of an issue or request.
Page: If the issue is on every page, then you can say “all,” otherwise say “homepage” or “Contact Us.” Then “Header,” “Navigation,” “Footer,” “Content area,” or wherever it is on that page or pages.
Device: It is helpful if you say desktop, laptop, tablet or phone. If you provide make/model of the item can also be helpful.
Browser: This will usually be IE, MS Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera. If you are unsure, try taking a screenshot of the icon you click to open to the internet.
Screenshots are usually helpful, but these can be harder for you to do, so if you can great, but if not then just do your best at describing the issue.
Be available to talk, sometimes a simple 5 minute phone call can save days of emailing back and forth. In person is even easier to show, but scheduling availability can make these meetings take forever to have.
And now you know why we said make sure you choose to work with someone you feel comfortable with.
Hopefully this helped, good luck to you!