Are you making this common web design mistake?

Tough love: if your website wasn’t build strategically, it’s probably not serving you.

Yes, your online presence is important. But you’re not gonna get a lot out of a website that’s pretty much a digital business card 🤷🏼‍♀️

So what are the components of a good website?

Compelling copy
Beautiful, on brand imagery
Professional, strategic design

One might think that design is everything when it comes to websites. Truth is, even the prettiest, well-thought-out design wouldn’t be complete without beautiful, on brand imagery and strategically written copy; You can’t build a house without good foundations.

Sounds simple enough right? And yet…

“Design is so simple. That’s why it’s so complicated.”

Compelling copy

There’s a reason 2 of my 5 top tips for a home page that converts are to clearly state what it is that you do above the fold (that section of your site that’s immediately visible after landing) and use call-to-actions (your buttons!). Design matters, I do really believe that (I’m a designer after all!), but if your visitors can’t figure out what it is you offer and how you’re solving their problems, well, we’re not going anywhere fast, are we?

“Great copy connects long before it converts”
— Jess Jordana

Your copy needs to do 3 things: Inform, connect, convert. Now that’s easier said than done.

That’s where copywriters come in. Copywriters take golden nuggets from customer research, consumer psychology and your inner genius, in order to write copy that feels like you, with the SEO bonus points.

If you’re not sure it’s something you can invest in right now though, I have a free guide that’ll help you plan and write your website copy.

Beautiful, on brand imagery

Images can make or break a design! As much as I’ll always advise you to hire a brand and/or product photographer (it does give the best, incredible results), I get that’s it’s not always an option. Enters stock photography! Stock photography can sometimes get a bad rap because of its unauthenticity. But it doesn’t have to be that way! There are plenty of great stockists out there, all you need is a little guidance.

If you’re not sure how to best pick images for your website, or you don’t know where to look for quality stock photography, I wrote a blog post about that topic a couple of weeks ago. Click here to read.

Professional design

Good design is so much more than pretty colors and graphics! Because I’m sure you want your website to convert (I mean, who doesn’t?), there are critical steps to implement before even thinking about the fonts and colors you’re going to use.

1 | What are your goals? Is it building awareness around your brand? Selling digital products? Booking a consultation or advertising a workshop? You need to know what your end goal is, in order to structure and design your site properly.

2 | Based on your goals, what are your needs? Are you giving your visitor the option to create and purchase bundles or sets? Do you need to be able to book and charge for consultations right from your site? That’s something that’ll need to be taken into consideration when designing (and building!) your website.

3 | Once you’ve got it all down, create a sitemap, which is like its name says, a map of your site. A sitemap will help you organize and structure your content in bite-sized pieces that will make your visitor actually eager to consume your content.

Whew! Are you still here? We’re getting to what you’re actually excited for, design!

One more important step, which is often skipped, is wireframes. If you don’t know what a wireframe is, it’s an image or set of images which displays the functional elements of a website or page, typically used for planning a site’s structure and functionality. Now that sounds a bit complicated; Essentially they’re sketches. So grab a piece of paper and a pen and get drawing! Remember your goals? How are you actually going to make this all happen? How will you guide your visitors towards their next step?

Once you have a visual structure in mind, you can hop on your platform of choice and get to work! (or you know, just ask a designer to do it all for you from the start 😉)