SiteManager
2019/09/16 14:47:38

Collaborative web design can be a game changer for agencies

Alexander Hoogewijs

Meet Caitlyn, Sarah, Ben and Steve. Caitlyn runs a small agency together with her team. Sarah is a graphic designer and Ben is a skilled copywriter. Because they don’t have enough work for a full time developer, they rely on Steve, a freelance developer.

They had a couple of frustrating problems.

Designer Sarah’s story

Sarah used to design websites in Photoshop. She created different layouts for desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile screens. After the client approved the mock-ups, she had to wait for ages until Steve, her freelance developer, coded the website and set up the CMS. For every small change the client requested, Sarah depended on the availability of Steve.

Feeling frustrated, Sarah started looking for a better suggestion.

Developer Steve’s story

Steve used to build websites with Wordpress. Whenever Sarah, the graphic designer, sends him a new design he spends many hours coding the responsive layout, setting up the hosting, CMS etc. Small requests from the client, like adjusting the blue background color on the homepage banner, could only be fixed by Steve. Every month he had to update Wordpress and its plugins to a new version for all his clients.

There had to be a better way.

Copywriter Ben's story

Ben used to edit content in WordPress and Joomla. He had to perform many actions to get the desired result. The modular approach had a steep learning curve, and he was always worried he would break the site. When plugins failed, they need to redo the work. Some sites even got hacked and crashed.

Ben had to find a way to avoid these problems.

Project manager Caitlyn's story

Caitlyn is the owner of this creative agency. She noticed that building similar website projects always took the same amount of time to complete. Sarah, the designer, depended on the development team even when the client requested some small design changes. Caitlyn was always under pressure to meet deadlines and stay within the project budget. She kept a spreadsheet of all project information such as hosting, CMS version, CMS users and development status.

Caitlyn started looking for a solution to make her process more efficient.

Collaborative web design

The situation might feel familiar to agency owners. Web projects are the result of a collaboration between different professionals: designers, developers, copywriters, SEO specialists, marketers, project managers, etc.

When technology doesn’t facilitate collaborations, things get more difficult and projects get delayed. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link.

  • The designer can’t make changes to the code.
  • Everyone depends on the availability of the freelance developer.
  • The copywriter has to work in an interface that is not tailored to suit his needs.
  • The project manager doesn’t have full control over her projects.


A collaborative web design platform offers a solution to most of these problems. Everyone who’s involved is provided with an interface tailored to suit his or her needs. And because it is a cloud platform, they can all work on the project simultaneously.

  • Designer Sarah is in complete design control and only has to call upon Steve for custom development.
  • Developer Steve can focus on what he actually likes to do: build custom features. He doesn’t need to get involved when the client only needs small design changes or when they need help with maintenance or updates.
  • Copywriter Ben works in a visual CMS with an intuitive drag & drop editor. The CMS is completely separated from the design, so he can’t break anything.
  • Project manager Caitlyn can manage all the projects from one centralized dashboard. She can add clients, freelancers, or other developers to the project and she can set custom permissions for every user.

Collaborative web design is a game changer for marketing agencies and creative studios. Learn more about the first collaborative web design platform on the market: SiteManager.

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