Your website design is the leader of a journey

People don’t just go to a website for the first time and make a large purchase. They go through a journey that leads them from first-time website viewers to paying clients and customers.

If done right, your website designs will craft this journey for each and every one of your clients.

Now, this might sound intimidating, but once you get the hang of it, it will come easy. So today I’m going to give you an example of a journey I went through when hiring my website designer and how you can apply that journey to your future website designs.

How I Discovered My Web Designer

(Edit: this is now describing the designer I used for a past design)
Let’s start with an overview of the steps I took from first discovering my website designer to the time I hired her.

• I found her blog on Pinterest, read the blog post I landed on, and binge-read a whole bunch more.
• While I was reading those posts, I signed up for several freebies and got on her mailing list.
• Throughout the time I was reading her blog posts, I was also checking out pages like her About page (and anything else I could find).
• I quickly followed her on social media and saw her daily updates.
• I tuned in whenever she did webinars, where she was usually pitching a product she created.
• I looked closely through her portfolio pieces and testimonials and read her services page over a couple times.

After all of that, I hired her.

Now, this didn’t all happen in a day, it took several months, but that’s the idea of the journey you want to create. If it can happen more quickly, that’s great, but the website also has to be able to support someone, like me, who could take a while to be ready for that purchase.

Steps of a Website Journey

Now let’s take a step back and dive a little deeper into each of those steps I took. Pay attention as we cover each one and how you can apply that to your future website designs. Remember, depending on the type of business your client runs and the goals they have, these steps will have to be a bit different, but it will give you an overall idea.

Finding her on Pinterest was the start of my journey. If she wouldn’t have had a presence on there, I likely would have discovered her somewhere else, but Pinterest is where I dove in.

Build Trust and Expert Status

Reading her blog posts proved her to be an expert to me and gave me a ton of information to put into action right away, which started the process of me building trust and wanting more of the information she was putting out. I was able to keep moving through her blog posts thanks to the recent posts she had at the bottom of each post and later by sorting through her well-organized categories.

While reading her blog posts, a lot of them had content upgrades. These content upgrades did a couple things. First, they got me on her email list. There are other ways to get people on a list, but this is what did it in this scenario. Getting on her list was an important part of things because it made sure I heard from her each and every week, so she was always at the front of my mind. The content upgrades also gave me quick wins. Usually, they were actionable worksheets related to her blog posts and that built even more trust and subconsciously showed me that she could get results.

Throughout reading her blog posts and being on her list, I read her About page, which had some information about her, her journey, and a fun picture. This was a big part of the trust-building process and it made me feel like I knew her a bit better.

Keep Them Coming Back for More

Following her on social media made sure that I heard from her every day. Just like being on her list, this kept her at the front of my mind. It also was a place that pulled me back into her blog each time she scheduled a new blog post.

And after a couple months came webinars, which I joined through being on her mailing list. These webinars were big for the overall journey. That’s where she became a person, instead of a website. Her personality was fun, I felt like we’d get along, and it built a ton of trust.

After a few months, I found myself needing a web designer and at that point there wasn’t a question in my mind about who I’d work with.

I looked closely at her portfolio pieces and testimonials again and knew she’d do a good job, read her services page closely to make sure I knew what I’d be getting, and was on to getting a beautiful website.

All of these parts of the journey can be applied to your own client’s websites. Thinking back through all of the steps I took, you can see that a lot of it will depend on your client’s ability to write targeted content and stay in touch with people, but it all starts with the website you create.

Navigation is Key

A few of the biggest pieces you can take away are to make sure each point of your design will get people moving to different pages that matter. Make sure each page has a call-to-action and that only relevant pages are visible in the navigation menu.

If your design and client’s content can get someone moving around a website, you can be pretty certain that they’ll eventually land on the blog. At that point, it’s up to your client’s content, but you also need to include ways for people to navigate to other blog posts, connect with your client on different platforms, and get on their mailing list.

Remember, some clients might be more focused on something like quick low-priced product sales or scheduling consult calls, which might change some things a bit, but if you think of the website as a journey overall, you’ll know where to fit them in.

Now that you can see that a website really does create a journey, I challenge you to keep this idea in mind next time you design a website. After your first mockup, take a second look and make sure the website will do what it needs to to get people going through the site and start building trust.