9 projects · 0 live & verified · a project is COMPLETED only when VERIFY passes (site confirmed live) · stages that don't apply to a project are simply absent from its bar

How the pipeline works

Two halves, one bar. Prospect is selling the dream and costs almost nothing; website development is building it properly and starts the day they sign. Stages run left to right on each bar. A project is COMPLETED at VERIFY — the site confirmed live with rankings protected.

1. ProspectSelling the dream. One free-range concept homepage, built to win the work. No SEO gates, no naming standard, no copy deck, no framework: nothing is spent on a deal nobody has signed. A prospect stops at CONCEPT APPROVAL and every stage below reads n/a until they convert.
2. CONCEPT HOME
   The pipeline starts here. The homepage is one-shot into an extraordinary on-brand concept as plain static HTML, free-range: no framework, no Client-First, no copy deck, no wireframes, so the whole budget goes on taste. It runs locally and doubles as the sales asset used to win the work. Approving it approves the DIRECTION, not the final markup.
3. CONCEPT APPROVAL
   The first of the two sign-off gates. What is approved is the DIRECTION, on the concept homepage, not the final markup. It goes out as a plain link with no review campaign attached, because one page is a partial build. Who approves it is recorded by name.
4. Website developmentBuilding the real site, under every rule. Starts the day they sign. The old site's rankings are protected from here on, Client-First naming is authoritative because the CMS build inherits it, and no stage advances without its gate.
5. DIAGNOSEoptional
   A full SEO audit of the existing site, run once a prospect becomes a client. Client only since 2026-08-27: chasing Search Console and GA4 access on a deal nobody has signed was costing a session before a single pixel was drawn.
6. BASELINE
   The insurance policy. Every URL, title, meta, heading, ranking position and Core Web Vitals reading is recorded before anything changes, so VERIFY can later prove nothing was lost at launch. Mandatory the day they convert. It cannot be reconstructed after cutover.
7. MESSAGE MAP
   Once the direction is bought, the argument is settled for every page still to be built: awareness state, target keywords, the order the sections run in, what job each does and where the proof goes. It sits after concept approval on purpose. The wording itself waits: see COPYDECK.
8. WIREFRAMES
   Before any page of an archetype is built, that archetype gets five cheap black-and-white layout options. One is picked, and the pick is recorded and binding. Five cheap options beat one expensive guess: iterating full-fidelity concepts one at a time measured four rounds of rework where one wireframe round would have done.
9. COPYDECK
   Now the words. With the layout picked, the copy is written into its actual slots and edited in place until signed off, one shot per archetype. It runs after the wireframe because copy written against slots nobody has chosen yet has to be rewritten once they exist, which meant paying for it twice.
10. DESIGN PAGES
    Every inner page designed and built to the approved direction, deployed as a full working showcase on staging. The whole site is authored to the Client-First naming standard from the first line, because the CMS build inherits those names.
11. DESIGN APPROVAL
    The second and last sign-off gate, and the one nothing downstream starts without. Whichever artifact IS this project's design reference gets approved here: the Figma file when the Figma loop ran, otherwise the Cloudflare build, or the CMS staging build when the project reviews there instead.
12. FIGMAoptional
    Optional loop, sitting between the two approval gates: the build is captured into a componentised Figma file when the project wants design-tool editing or a formal design asset. When it runs, the Figma file becomes the surface DESIGN APPROVAL happens on. It does not add a third approval.
13. BUILD
    The approved design is rebuilt on the client's own CMS — Beaver Builder, Elementor or Webflow — page by page, and screenshot-compared against the approved reference until it matches on desktop, tablet and mobile.
14. NATIVISE
    Anything built as raw HTML inside the CMS is converted into native, client-editable modules, so the client can safely edit their own site later without a developer. Required whenever BUILD used any custom per-client script.
15. PRE-FLIGHT
    The launch checklist, before anything is flipped: every old URL's redirect mapped, forms tested end to end, tracking firing, 404s handled, performance passing, and the live site's plugin and theme versions matching what was built against.
16. CUTOVER
    Launch. A fresh off-server backup first, then the push manifest is walked step by step and the new site goes live on the real domain. Site chrome last.
17. VERIFYcompleted = live
    The gate that makes a project COMPLETED. The live site is re-crawled and diffed against the BASELINE snapshot: every old URL must 301 to its new home, rankings are re-checked, pages are pixel-compared. A pass means the site is confirmed live with nothing lost.
18. STABILISEpost-live
    The 2 to 4 week watch after launch: Search Console coverage and 404s monitored, rankings tracked against the baseline, client fix rounds handled. After this the website is complete and everything beyond is ongoing maintenance and growth.