Frequently Asked Questions

Katalyst works with a range of businesses, including professional service firms, established small businesses, local service businesses, startups, consultants, and other organizations that need a professional website. The best projects are businesses that want more than a basic online presence and need a website that clearly communicates what they do, builds trust, and makes it easier for the right people to take action.

A freelance web designer can handle much more than the visual design of a website. Depending on the project, Katalyst works across strategy, UX, information architecture, visual design, development, responsive behavior, accessibility, SEO, performance, integrations, testing, and launch. The goal is to create a website that works well for both the business and the people using it, not simply one that looks good.

Katalyst combines business strategy, UX, visual design, and development in the same website process. Rather than treating those as completely separate steps, the design and development work together throughout the project. This allows the site to be refined as a real, functioning product rather than designing something in isolation and figuring out how to build it later.

Katalyst primarily creates custom website designs around each business's goals, content, audience, and brand. Templates can be useful in some situations, but a custom approach gives more control over the site's structure, visual identity, user experience, and functionality.

A typical Katalyst project moves through strategy and discovery, UX and information architecture, visual direction, design and development, testing, pre-launch preparation, launch, and handoff. The visual design and development stages overlap rather than happening as completely separate phases. This allows the site's layout, responsiveness, interactions, animations, content, and functionality to be refined together as the website takes shape. The exact process can vary somewhat depending on the project.

The timeline depends on the size and complexity of the website, how quickly content and feedback are provided, and the functionality required. Smaller websites can move relatively quickly, while larger or more involved projects naturally take longer. A project timeline and milestones are established around the specific scope before work begins.

Usually, I need information about your business, goals, audience, services, existing brand, competitors, and any existing website or marketing materials that may be relevant. You do not need to have everything figured out before we begin. Part of the process is working through those questions together and determining what the website actually needs.

Most website projects include three rounds of revisions, with feedback built into the major stages of the process. I'm happy to accommodate reasonable adjustments as we go. The revision limit primarily exists to keep projects moving and prevent open-ended revision cycles rather than to discourage useful feedback.

The exact scope depends on the project, but website packages can include strategy and discovery, UX and information architecture, custom visual design, responsive design, website development, CMS setup, SEO, accessibility, performance optimization, forms and integrations, analytics, domain setup, launch, and handoff. The specific deliverables for your project are outlined in the proposal before work begins.

UX is built into the website design process from the beginning. This can include information architecture, navigation, page structure, content hierarchy, user flows, usability, responsive behavior, and other decisions that affect how easily people can understand and use the site. The result is a website designed around the people who will actually use it, not just the business that owns it.

Yes. Katalyst can redesign existing websites when a business needs a stronger user experience, visual design, structure, performance, or overall online presence. Depending on the project, the work can include refreshing existing content, restructuring pages, improving navigation and UX, migrating content, addressing technical issues, and rebuilding the site on a new platform.

Yes. Katalyst can help move an existing website to a new platform while taking steps to minimize disruption. This can include migrating content, maintaining important URLs where appropriate, setting up 301 redirects, checking for broken links, and handling the technical details of the new site's launch. Existing SEO can often be protected during a well-planned migration, although no migration can guarantee that search performance will remain exactly the same.

Yes, depending on the scope of the project. I can help develop, organize, refine, or write website content when needed. In some projects, I'll also create enough initial content to keep the website moving rather than allowing the project to stall indefinitely waiting for copy. When possible, however, I encourage clients to contribute their own knowledge, examples, perspective, and expertise. Nobody understands the business quite like the people who actually run it.

When copywriting is included in a project, AI may be used as part of the drafting and development process, particularly to help improve efficiency and keep the focus of the project on UX, design, development, and performance. AI does not replace the client's knowledge or Katalyst's review and refinement. The strongest website content usually starts with real information, experience, and insight from the business itself.

Every Katalyst website includes a baseline of technical and on-page SEO designed to give the site a strong foundation for search. Depending on the project, this can include SEO-friendly page structure and headings, title tags, meta descriptions, appropriate image alt text, clean URLs, sitemap setup, social metadata, Google Search Console setup, indexing support, and basic technical and performance optimization. More extensive keyword research or SEO strategy can be added when a project requires it.

No. Katalyst does not guarantee specific search rankings or traffic levels. The goal is to build a technically sound, useful website with strong on-page fundamentals. Search visibility also depends on factors outside the website itself, including competition, content, authority, relevance, location, and ongoing SEO efforts.

There is no fixed timeline for SEO results. Search engines may discover and index a new website relatively quickly, but meaningful changes in search visibility can take considerably longer. Katalyst focuses on giving a new website a solid technical and content foundation rather than promising a specific ranking or timeframe.

After launch, Katalyst can connect Google Search Console, submit the site's sitemap, and request indexing where appropriate. However, requesting indexing does not guarantee that Google will immediately index a page, and there is no fixed timeframe for when a new page will appear in search results.