The 5 Ingredients for a Perfect Website Strategy

You know that it’s important to have a purpose behind your design decisions. A gorgeous website design that serves no purpose isn’t as exciting or valuable as a website that gets your clients results.

While you know that designs need a purpose, you may not know all of the important pieces that make up an effective website strategy. Today, we’re covering the 5 main ingredients that result in a perfect website strategy.

Goals

Everything starts with your client’s goals because your strategy depends on what your client is ultimately trying to do. The website strategy for someone who is selling products will look different from the strategy for someone who wants to book out their coaching services.

Before you start a project, ask your clients what their big goals are for their website. This gives you something concrete to work with and lets you see your client’s ideal end result. You can also ask your clients what would make their website design worth the process of finding and hiring a designer.

Once you know what your client’s goals are, break that information down into smaller goals that can be supported through items and design decisions on the website. If your client’s goal is to book out their coaching service, then you’ll probably want to create some calls-to-action that encourage visitors to book a free consultation with them and connect with them on social media.

Trust

Trust is one of the most important aspects of success online. If your client is going to be successful, their audience needs to trust them. You can help your client gain their audience’s trust through your website design.

Look at the website layout and determine how you can build trust through it. While copy is a big part of building trust on a website, it’s not the only factor people consider. Photos of your client and clear ways to contact them also help to build trust.

Website visitors like knowing the person behind the website, so think about how you can use your website design to give visitors a look at how awesome your client is.

Site Layout

The overall layout of a website is an important part of a strategy. A site’s layout will ultimately decide where goal-supporting items and calls-to-action will take place.

When considering a website layout, you have some big decisions to make. You can choose a full-width site layout, a sidebar, or a double sidebar. Each layout will affect the website strategy and feel.

You’ll also need to decide how to use the footer and whether or not the layout of each page will be the same.

The site’s layout decides where visitors’ eyes are drawn as they navigate the site. When you look at your layout, consider how future visitors will view the site as they browse it. Note what your eyes are drawn to. Do the items that grab your attention support your client’s goal? If they don’t, you may need to make some adjustments.

Call-To-Action Use

It’s important to include a call-to-action on each page of your website design. You can’t let your client’s website visitors wander around the site. They need to be clearly directed and told what to do. That’s where CTAs come in.

A call-to-action tells the visitor to perform a specific action, such as book an appointment. When you’re creating your calls-to-action, be sure to consider on which page the CTA will appear. You need to know what the audience will be primed to do after visiting a particular page.

For example, after a website visitor reads a blog post, they’ll be more likely to download an opt-in related to the post. However, blog posts aren’t the only things that should have CTAs. You can use them just as effectively on other pages of the site.

The bottom of your client’s About page is a great place for drawing attention to products and services. A call-to-action here could encourage visitors to check out your client’s Work With Me or Shop page.

CTAs are an important part of site design. You never want to create a dead-end website design. When the audience reaches the bottom of a page, you want a clear arrow pointing them to the next page. However, it’s important that you use CTAs wisely. Too many can be overwhelming.

Journey

In all of your designing, planning, and revising, don’t forget that you’re creating a journey for your client’s audience using the first 4 ingredients. The journey that you create needs to result in the achievement of your client’s goals.

When you’re designing a website, ask yourself how your website design can take someone from their first experience with your client to being ready to buy a product or hire them for a service.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the journey you create should be accessible from every page of your client’s website. No matter which page a visitor starts on, they should be able to jump into the journey you’ve created without a problem. (Remember the trust factor we talked about earlier? This is a great way to build trust – create a journey that’s smooth, relatable, and accessible.)

Are you incorporating these ingredients?

Designing an effective website includes knowing your client’s goals, building trust with visitors, creating the right site layout, using CTAs effectively, and bringing everything together to create a smooth journey for visitors.

At the end of the day, creating an effective website strategy is about more than just designing another site. It’s about helping your client achieve their goals.

A well-designed website will do some heavy lifting for your clients, helping them book more clients easily. In turn, that can result in rave reviews and referrals for you. Having quality testimonials often leads to finding clients that are willing to pay more for what you do, all because you know the five secret ingredients to effective website design.

Get started creating strategic and effective websites today. Download the checklist!