I love my web designers friends, but in today’s world, you need to be focused on a lot more than just design when it comes to your website. To be clear, the design is a vital element of a website.
Your website needs to be functional and pleasing to the eye of your visitors. They expect it to be and this is important. Yet, we cannot sacrifice clear messaging, great content and a strategic customer journey that the customer is looking for.
As business owners we have to shake off the “make my site beautiful” attitude and make sure we take the time to get the skeleton (Messaging, content and customer journey) right first. These days more and more designers are understanding this better than in previous years but these are OUR sites and we need to be sure .
Words matter. We have to get them right.
We need our website to be a perfect marriage of messaging, content, strategy, customer journey, SEO, user experience, functionality and design.
Being intentional about all these elements will allow business owners to not just reduce risk (as websites and marketing are not getting less expensive) but leverage an incredible tool in our marketing and sales.
What is the purpose of our websites?
In an effort to keep the horse before the cart we need to talk about the purpose of our website in our business before we talk about the key elements.
Websites are no longer brochures or digital trifolds of our business and the items we offer. A modern website has many jobs it has to tackle:
- Show Up – If our website is not optimized to be found online it will stay hidden in the sea of the digital world.
- Build trust – Your website’s first job is to build trust. As a person arrives on your website, it needs to validate their challenges and problems. This let’s them know they are in the right place and prevents that quick bounce.
- Enlighten – Your website should teach people how to identify what their problems and challenges actually are. As people it is amazing how hard it can be to understand what our problems are until we hear/read them articulated back to us with clarity.
- Advise – Once a person has found you and trusts you, you need to inform them on how you can solve their problems, often.
- Nurture – Only a small number of visitors are ready to pull the trigger on their first visit. Many times people will come back multiple times before they make a purchase or connect with us. Capturing their email address with a valuable offer exchange can allow you to continue to create value and enlighten them and countinue them on their customer journey.
- Convert – A conversion on one site may look very different on another; from subscribing to a newsletter, to calling you, to actually making a purchase on your website. Conversion opportunities need to be an element of the design of your homepage to help guide the journey.
I am a strong advocate for proactively prospecting in our businesses but these days it is almost always true that our customer’s journey will be at least partially taken on our website. For many of us these days most of that journey happens there.
People will be making conclusions about whether we are a good fit to solve their problems based on the journey we create for them to take.
It is critical you have a clear and concise presence during these early research and enlightenment stages. Here are some elements that are critical in doing that.
Tell them a story
People love stories. Since people began communicating with one another we have told stories and this is still true today. Stories give us context and compel us to take action. The main goal your website should achieve is to be able to immediately tell a story. What you may be doing wrong with storytelling on your website is that the story is not about YOU.
The story must be the story your customers and prospects are telling themselves and need to hear from you.
They need to see themselves in that story. The journey of this story starts with their problem and challenges. They know they need to solve these problems and need to know you understand them. Within a few short seconds of landing on your site they need to see that you understand the obstacles that they are facing. They also need to begin to believe that you are positioned to solve these problems.
Guide them on a journey
Your website is a map that will guide your potential customers on a very strategic journey allowing them the opportunity to convert at the perfect time for them anywhere along that journey. Here are some questions to ask yourself about the journey you are trying to lay out for your customers:
- What external problems does your customer have?
- How do they feel about that/those problems? (internal problem)
- Why is it unjust or wrong for them to be facing this problem?
- What do they need to hear from you at this point in their journey?
- What questions do they have?
- What is stopping them from solving this problem?
- What actions and next steps do they need to take to solve this problem?
Your website’s main purpose is to take them on a journey of trust, enlightenment, nurturing and converting (solving their problem). Think about each element on your website and whether it is in clear alignment with this journey or whether it is a distraction.
When you think of guiding people through your website, design is a natural element to think about, but remember, SEO, content, and strategy need to be done in parallel with design. In fact, many believe web design should revolve around SEO rather than the other way around.
If you feel like your website may need some help staying on purpose and growing your business, a great place to start is my Ultimate Marketing Checklist + 7 Day Video Series. It focused just on the vital elements of a solid marketing and sales strategy without all the overwhelming pieces. Just what you need to get real results and keep growing!
