Frequent questions

Absolutely! We are vetted by Webflow as one of their trusted Enterprise level partners. Being an Enterprise partner with Webflow is the highest honor for any agency using Webflow.

Before Zabal Media was founded, the founder Wilian worked at two startups that were acquired by Google (Kifi & Cronologics). Wilian went on to work At Google as a lead product designer where he helped successful teams strategize, design, develop, launch, and iterate at scale. Zabal Media is applying these practices with our partners.

Strategy:

• Define business goals.
• Define personas and their goals + pain points.
• Gather content documents.
• Ux/Ui design: All done inside Figma.
• We create a technical sitemap that defines the overall site structure and we define the back-end input fields so that marketing / content editors can easily manage the site on an ongoing basis.
• Low fidelity designs (this is focused on information architecture & what the page is trying to communicate to the users).
• Approval phase to go over the layout and how the information is presented in a chronological order.
• High fidelity designs (This is where we make the pages beautiful. We make pages detailed through animations, visual design, graphic design, branding etc.).
• Approval phase to go over the look and feel of the pages to make sure that the theme is consistent with the brand direction.

Webflow development:

• Build out a design system in one page to have a central place to update universal buttons, forms, sections, containers etc.
• Build out the front-end in a scalable way using html & css best practices so that the site has zero technical debt.
• Build out the back-end in a way that's intuitive for the marketing team to add, remove, and modify content.
• Test website loading speed to ensure that the site is performing correctly.
• Update page settings (SEO title, meta descriptions, open graph images etc.).
• Go through our internal website launch list to make sure everything is covered.

QA:

• Create a QA sheet and document all links that need to be tested.
• Test all links across all major browsers and screen sizes.
• Manage website performance.
• Share the QA report with your team in Slack for transparency.
• Share the report with the Zabal development team and they will take care of the bugs.

Definitely. At the end of each project, we do a recorded zoom call where we do a high level overview of Webflow as a platform.

Things we cover:

• How to use the Webflow editor?
• How to use the Webflow designer?
• How to maintain the Webflow CMS?
• How do all project settings work?
• How to apply SEO best practices into your project?
• And much more..…

We also do hourly consulting on how to use Webflow.

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There are 24 members on the team (and we are always looking for more rockstars). Our team is made up of several departments that are specialized in various areas.

• Ux/Ui designers
• Animators
• Graphic designers
• Webflow developers
• Software engineers
• QA experts
• Project managers

We have been specialized in Webflow since 2015. Zabal then became a certified Webflow agency partner in 2017 and is recognized as one of the top enterprise agency partners throughout the world.

Webflow is a low-code / no-code tool that allows designers to build the front-end & back-end development of a website in an easy to manage CMS. Webflow is one of the first tools to get the visual development experience correct, by allowing designers to build exactly what they have designed without compromising the user experience. Brands love Webflow because of how easy it is to maintain and scale their marketing websites. We have worked with small startups and large companies to migrate their websites over to Webflow. Webflow can handle just about any size project. Want to learn more?

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It depends on the scope of the work. Here are a few factors to take into account when evaluating the due date / launch date of your next project:

• Is it a design & development project?
• Are there any complex integrations with 3rd party tools / apps?
• Is the content for the website ready?
• Do you have the sitemap / number of pages in mind? How many pages will the website have in total?
• Will the website require custom code?
• And more!

We are 100% involved from beginning to the end of each project. We also help with domain setup and guide you during the CNAME and @ Records setup. Aside from our own internal checklist, we can decide together when is the right time to launch the site.

We do not accept projects below: $5,000

We call this the, “get out of bed budget”. We do not take on projects that are below $5,000 to ensure the entire team involved is being adequately compensated. We also have a max budget. We do not take on projects over the budget of $500,000, because projects this large require a larger group of dedicated resources. Our goal is to provide the best outcomes for our partners and our budget minimum and maximum allows us to do our best work with the current team/resources we have.

Yes, we require a 50% deposit in order to get started, unless you are only interested in a retainer / ongoing engagement with Zabal Media. Retainers do not require an upfront payment since payments are made at the end of each month.

In order for us to be able to answer this question, we will need a detailed scope of work. In the scope of work, we will need as much information about the project as you can provide. The more information provided, the closer we can get to an exact number. Although, for projects that do not have all of the details, we can still provide budget ranges.

Lastly, we have a large team and have the flexibility to do a lot of great work together. Often times, we have partners tell us exactly how much they are looking to invest into their project and we do the most we can possible within the budget provided.

We accept most payment processing tools:

• Bank Transfer
• Credit / Debit Card
• Wire Transfer
• Mailed Check

Each project that we take on will have a complimentary project manager. The project manager is responsible for:

• Connecting with the partner (main point of contact), designers, developers, and QA experts teams to align the team on expectations.
• A timeline is set up for the entire project and also at each phase of the project. For example, the design phase will have a section in the timeline that defines the start and end of low fidelity and high fidelity designs. This will help the entire team stay on top of due dates and what phases will follow.
• Communication through the desired communication channel will also be updated on a regular basis.

When there is a need for ongoing training, we define the backlog of projects and based on the needs we will set aside a specific amount of hours on the project. We love ongoing training with great partners.

We pride ourselves on being flexible and easy to work with. If projects require faster timelines, we will simply add more team members to the projects (this may impact the budget).

Ongoing retainers are our preferred way to work with our partners. Essentially, we define a minimum and maximum budget for each month. Based on that budget range, we are able to allocate our internal resources to work with your team on an ongoing basis.

Project timelines are defined when a new task gets created. The retainer engagement allows for Zabal Media and our partners to be much more fluid while collaborating.

Zabal is a low-code / no-code agency. However, we do have engineers on the team that can write custom code when Webflow has limitations. It’s rare that Webflow does not support a functional specification from our partners, but if needed, we can write custom HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and other frameworks.

Webflow is a flexible, front-end & back-end CMS tool that is capable of building and hosting small, medium, and large scale websites. Zabal Media is 100% bought into Webflow and exclusively uses Webflow as our main website development tool.

Here are a few reasons for looking into Webflow for your next project:

• Webflow Designer: This is where developers build out the front-end of the website. This entails the look and feel of the website - the stuff that your customers will see and interact with when they land on your website.
• Webflow CMS: This is the back-end where developers will build out the different data types required for marketing teams to enter the website content.
• Webflow Editor: This is a marketing team's dream. Marketers and content creators no longer need to work with code. They can easily update / maintain the website from the Editor without the need to work on complex systems.
• Webflow E-commerce: For partners that have a shopping experience within their website, Webflow makes it extremely easy to manage your store by allowing you to sell digital and physical goods. Some limitations may apply.
• Custom code: It’s possible to add custom code to your site by adding it to the project settings or page specific section. This includes custom integrations, sections, API etc.
• Overall, Webflow is one of the best tools in the market and has now established itself in the enterprise space.

If you have any Webflow specific questions, we are more than happy to help you find the answers you’re looking for. As Webflow Enterprise Partners, we have the ability to get you direct access to a Webflow engineer, account executive, and support team contacts if needed.

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Ready to chat?

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You can host your website yourself outside of Webflow. The way that this works is by exporting the code from Webflow and hosting it on another server. However, we do recommend using Webflow hosting. Especially if your website has a back-end CMS solution to it. 100% of our partners are using Webflow to host their website due to their reliable hosting plans and uptime service level agreement.

If hosting on Webflow is not an option for you and your team, we can build the site in Webflow and send you a file with all of the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images for you to host on your own servers.

For your convenience, feel free to learn more here: https://webflow.com/hosting

We exclusively build with Webflow. However, we don’t only focus on website development. We are an end-to-end agency that can help you on most, if not all of your project needs.

Below are the tools that we specialize in:

• Webflow: For all of our web development
• Adalo: For all of our mobile app development
• Figma: For all of our Ux/Ui design
• Adobe After Effects: For all of our animation work
• Cinema 4d: For all of our 3D graphics
• Adobe Photoshop: For all image manipulations
• Adobe Illustrator: For creating custom vector graphics, icons, illustrations etc.
• Zapier: For all 3rd party integrations within Webflow
• Clickup: For all of our project management
• Slack: For all communication and client management
• Youtube: For our team to find and share funny dog/cat videos

If you have a development team already, we can help on the design side as an extension of your team. Our designers also understand how both code and Webflow work and will be mindful of the type of designs they create. Doing so will make it easy for your development team to sync up with our design team.

We encourage our designers and your developers to communicate often in order to make sure that all designs are feasible and can be implemented within budget and timelines.

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Absolutely. We would be more than happy to help with this. In fact, it’s one of our favorite types of projects because we know how much value it will bring to you and your team once it’s completed. Below are the steps on how to migrate your website:

• We can take the same designs and simply build them in Webflow.
• We can design and develop a brand new site in Webflow.
• If you have a design team, they can provide the final designs and we can build them in Webflow.
• If you have a blog, e-books, press, etc., we will need the content from your old CMS. An easy way to handle this is by exporting the data as a CSV file.

We pride ourselves on being an end-to-end agency. Meaning, we can work on the strategy, design, development, QA, and launch your website. However, we can step in at different parts of a project as well.

In many cases, we partner with clients that already have an internal design team. Meaning, they only need help with Webflow development. In this case, we will simply need to get access to your Figma, XD, Sketch etc. source files so that we can develop them. Our developers are also knowledgeable around design best practices.

Design files should have the following:

• Mockups of the final / approved designs.
• Annotations describing the interaction design patterns used.
• Edit access so that our developers can export the assets.
• Details about the dynamic elements used on CMS template pages.
• Access to video and 3rd party links.
• A full list of the links on the website.

We are not a branding focused agency. While we can help with branding and marketing materials, we do not specialize in this field. In most cases our partners come to us with already defined branding guidelines. This includes:

• Logos
• Colors
• Stock images
• Branding use-cases
• Inspiration

Having the brand book completed will be very helpful when it comes to creating the visual design of the website. However, if the visual design of the brand is not available, we will design 3-5 different visual designs for a page on the website to get a sense of what aesthetic resonates with you and your team.  Once we define the general visual design direction, our designers will apply that to all other pages on the website.

The cost for design is difficult to calculate because design is so subjective. Also, the scope of work will impact the cost. After working on many projects, we estimate a realistic expectation is between $1,000 - $7,000 per page.

This depends on the type of engagement that you’re looking for. Our retainer option allows you to have as many rounds of iterations as you wish, since you will be billed hourly. The fixed rate project options have a maximum of 3 rounds of iterations per phase. Meaning, the design phase has 3 rounds, and development will have 3 rounds. In total per project, you can expect 6-10 rounds of iterations.

For more than 6 iterations per project, you can pay an additional hourly rate of $150hr.

Our project managers will help you with all projects and task related items. We have a robust design process that we will take you through in hopes to make the working relationship as easy for you as possible. Let us manage projects so that you don’t have to be on top of everything.

If you have a design team and simply need some extra hands, you can simply add us to the design files and we will take it from there. It’s that easy.