Phase 1: Clarity
Before you redesign, figure out what's actually wrong.
Most small businesses come to us with a feeling.
Something about the website isn't working. Visitors seem confused. Conversations take too long to get to the point. Leads aren't quite the right fit.
The instinct is usually to redesign.
But most websites don't fail because of design. They fail because no one defined what each page was supposed to do in the first place.
Without page intent, the website attempts to serve all purposes simultaneously. This rarely ends well.
Phase 1 exists to slow that moment down and replace guesswork with clarity.
What actually happens during Phase 1
This isn't a vague strategy conversation. It's a structured process.
We use a Purpose-Driven Messaging questionnaire to evaluate your site page by page. For each page, we identify what it's supposed to accomplish, what questions visitors need answered, what's working, what's misaligned, and what shouldn't exist at all.
The process is calm, collaborative, and designed to surface decisions you didn't know you needed to make.
We typically complete Phase 1 within 1-2 weeks.
What you walk away with
A page intent map.
Not a generic audit. Not a list of SEO recommendations. A structured document that defines the purpose of every key page on your site, what questions each page should answer, what's currently misaligned, and what to keep, cut, or restructure.
You can use this independently. Hand it to another developer. Guide an internal team. Act on it yourself.
But it's designed to feed directly into Phase 2, where we turn clarity into content direction and messaging strategy. The people best suited to execute on this map are the ones who built it.
Whose it for?
Who Phase 1 is for
Phase 1 is a good fit if you know your website feels unclear but you're not sure why. If people frequently misunderstand what you do. If you're considering a redesign but aren't confident it'll fix the real problem. If you've got multiple services that are hard to explain clearly, or content that feels disconnected.
It's probably not a fit if you want a fast redesign without rethinking content, or if you're looking for trend-driven visuals first. Phase 1 is about clarity, not shortcuts.
What Phase 1 is not
Phase 1 is not a sales call disguised as strategy.
There is no obligation to move forward. No automatic upsell. No pressure to redesign.
Its purpose is clarity. Good decisions tend to follow naturally.
Investment
$1,500 - $3,000 depending on the size and complexity of the site.
Ready to start with clarity?
If your website feels unclear and you're not sure why, this is the logical place to begin.
Clarity before design is not dramatic. It is simply logical.