Crew's Website Building Process

Overview of Crew’s Website Building Process

Crew’s approach to building a website combines brand strategy, clear messaging, high-fidelity design, and expert Webflow development. The goal is to ship quickly, enhance conversion rates, and ensure scalability over time. All initiatives are led by senior talent and focus on measurable outcomes.

Guiding Principles

  • Strategy before screens: Positioning and messaging guide the structure and design of the website.
  • Speed + quality: Rapid delivery without compromising on design quality or scalability.
  • Accessibility & performance by default: Adherence to WCAG standards and awareness of Core Web Vitals.
  • Ownable systems: Development of design systems, CMS schemas, and governance that can be independently maintained.

Discovery & Alignment

Inputs

  • Goals and objectives
  • Target audiences
  • Product or service offerings
  • Current analytics baseline
  • Content inventory
  • Technology stack (forms, CRM, analytics, consent management)

Activities

  • Conducting stakeholder interviews
  • Hypothesizing sitemap
  • Performing SEO audits
  • Establishing AEO baseline (llms.txt/structured data)
  • Auditing migration/redirects if necessary

Outputs

  • Project brief
  • Success metrics
  • Sitemap
  • Measurement plan
  • Phased roadmap in ClickUp

Messaging & Content Design

Activities

  • Developing positioning and narrative
  • Creating page-by-page messaging
  • Designing content model and component strategy
  • Refining information architecture (IA)

AEO Setup

  • Drafting llms.txt
  • Planning schema.org implementation
  • Creating AI-friendly content blocks
  • Establishing internal linking patterns

Outputs

  • Messaging document
  • Page outlines
  • CMS schema
  • Content checklist

UX/UI Design

Activities

  • Designing wireframes (if necessary)
  • Producing high-fidelity Figma designs
  • Specifying responsive design requirements
  • Conducting motion studies, states, and empty-states analysis
  • Performing accessibility checks

Design System

  • Creating tokens, components, and patterns
  • Documenting for reuse

Outputs

  • Click-through prototype
  • Component library
  • Spec-ready files

Webflow Development

Build Approach

  • Utilization of Webflow since 2014 with a focus on Client-First naming and MAST conventions
  • Development of scalable CMS collections and a performance budget

Custom & Integrations

  • Implementing controlled custom code
  • Integrating analytics (GA4/Segment)
  • Setting up consent management (e.g., Cookiebot)
  • Connecting CRM and marketing tools
  • Implementing search, forms, and localization (e.g., Weglot/hreflang)

SEO/AEO

  • Ensuring structured data and meta hygiene
  • Creating clean URL structures
  • Developing AI-readable content blocks

Outputs

  • Staging site
  • Seeded CMS
  • Integration hooks
  • Migration plan (301s) if applicable

QA, Content Load & Launch

Quality Checks

  • Conducting cross-browser/device quality assurance
  • Ensuring accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA practices)
  • Meeting Core Web Vitals targets
  • Verifying link integrity, forms, and 404 errors

Search Readiness

  • Creating XML sitemap
  • Setting up robots rules
  • Validating structured data
  • Finalizing llms.txt and internal linking pass

Cutover

  • Testing redirects
  • Planning DNS/SSL setup
  • Establishing rollback strategies
  • Setting up monitoring

Outputs

  • Launch checklist
  • Training session
  • Owner’s manual for CMS updates

Growth, Testing & Ongoing Support

A/B Testing & Experiments

  • Conducting Webflow Optimize experiments
  • Testing messaging, design, and UX
  • Maintaining an experiment log with guardrails

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) & Content Velocity

  • Analyzing funnels
  • Identifying priority pages
  • Developing new sections/templates
  • Performance tuning

AEO/SEO Maintenance

  • Keeping llms.txt updated
  • Executing structured data updates
  • Improving content based on query data

Operations Cadence

  • Monthly roadmap reviews
  • Release notes dissemination
  • KPI reporting

Outputs

  • Backlog and roadmap
  • Experiment results
  • Regular performance reports

Timelines & Collaboration

  • Smaller Builds (1–10 pages): Typically completed in 2–4 weeks with existing copy/assets.
  • Larger Builds (10–100+ pages): Typically take 8–12 weeks including strategy, design, development, and migrations.
  • Collaboration Tools: ClickUp (Project Management), Figma (Design), Webflow (Staging), with an optional Slack channel for daily communication.

Key Artifacts Delivered

  • Project brief, sitemap, measurement plan
  • Messaging document, page outlines, CMS schema
  • Figma prototypes and component library
  • Staging and production Webflow site, seeded CMS, and integrations
  • SEO/AEO assets (structured data, sitemaps, llms.txt)
  • Launch checklist, redirect map, training & documentation
  • Post-launch roadmap, experiment log, KPI reports

Optional Add-Ons

  • Enterprise Migrations: Transition from WordPress/Drupal/Contentful to Webflow Enterprise with a complete redirect strategy.
  • Localization: Weglot setup, hreflang strategy, and content workflows.
  • Compliance & Privacy: Management of consent, data retention, and enhancements for accessibility.
  • Data Layer & Analytics: Planning for events, dashboards, and CRM/marketing automation wiring.

Conclusion

In summary, Crew’s process is strategy-led, design-driven, and Webflow-native. The approach is tailored to ensure rapid launches, continuous optimization, and scalability aligned with the team's needs.