A better website starts with a clearer brief.
What to write down before choosing a layout or opening a builder: the visitor, the offer, the next step, and the facts a page must get right.
Read the guideField notes
A few useful thoughts
before you build.
Short guides for the decisions that can make a website clearer, calmer, and easier to use.
What these notes are for
Each note covers one decision that comes before design: what the website should say, which pages earn their place, and what to check before a launch. They are written for people building a first or second website for their own business or project, and for the agencies that help them. None of them depends on using the reforgeweb builder, though each ends where the builder begins: with a brief you can act on.
The notes are written and edited by the people behind reforgeweb from their own work on small business websites. They contain no statistics, quotes or case studies, because we have not published research of our own; where a claim needs evidence, we say so rather than borrow a number.
You probably need fewer pages than you think.
Build a useful first version around real visitor questions, and let later pages earn their place instead of filling a menu.
Read the guideSmall checks that make a launch feel finished.
A practical review of content, mobile layouts, links and forms, read as a first-time visitor would, before a website goes live.
Read the guide