Map Out a Website
There is no question. Building a website can be daunting.
Before you even start, the first step is to map out your copy and design. Can you imagine building any infrastructure without any blueprints? It can become a logistical and HR nightmare without one. Your website should be the same. Map out exactly what you want to see on your website, and make sure the functionality makes sense. It will help reveal the types of content you have and need, the interactive elements your visitors use, and identify any useless pages to remove.
Every website should have a goal and a purpose because if you don’t? Good luck to your clients and your bottom line. Without a clear objective for your website, it becomes hard to navigate, and you’ll usually lose the client.
Don’t leave them confused. Lead them.
A common issue we often see is clients who have initially started their online presence by building a brochure website. But as the need to add more information arises, the site becomes an absolute mess of content in random places and pages mainly because there isn’t consensus about the goal.
Stop wasting your time and money. Take a step back, review your goals, build a map, and start working through your website content.
Take, for example, our client Moja Coffee.
Their new website launched in July 2022. See how there was an increase in the number of new users in a short period illustrated below. We redesigned the homepage to be more on-brand, showcase different products, and allow for more copy to help with SEO. We made these aesthetic changes with user experience (UX) in mind. We improved UX by adding CTAs and more straightforward directions to different parts of the website that might be interesting.
Web Design, Sure – But Let’s Talk Copy
Copy is king. But it’s often overlooked because visuals are highly competitive for your attention. A golden rule in web design is that copy should always come first and influence design, not the other way around. You want to convey a consistent message through words and visuals. There are several reasons why.
A website can be drop-dead gorgeous, but what is it trying to say? Or is it only there to look pretty?
It is useless if you designed a website with the best-looking graphics but have nothing to say. The copy should describe the site’s purpose, and your design should reinforce that purpose. The copy you write for your website should sell and deliver results; it cannot do so with images alone.
And if you’re lacking content, good luck trying to rank for SEO.
Your content has two purposes. First, provide information to get your customers to take the next step. Second, to cater to search engines such as Google and Bing. The more well-developed and higher quality the copy is, the more likely it is to rank higher in organic search results.
And yes, we could cater to the search engines all day, but ultimately the words on your website should be able to build relationships.
We transformed Axon Software’s site to talk directly to the prospective client. Once we launched the website in July 2021, we doubled their new organic users during the first 30 days!
How Do We Build Trust in Our Website Copy?
When writing for your website, it’s crucial to keep your target audience in mind. A consideration usually neglected while planning is understanding where your customer is in their customer journey when they land on your website.
Centering your target audience should influence how and what you write. Writing in a language your audience will understand, staying jargon-free and highlighting benefits and pain points rather than features of your product or services.
When creating content for your website, consider what information is most valuable to your audience. You must arrange your website in a way that is easy to access and use. This layout should include clear calls to action on each page, guiding your prospect to the next step in their customer journey.
If you don’t know where to start with your website, a juicy tip is placing your testimonials together and picking out key points. This exercise will help you write your copy to make your reader feel like you’re talking about what they are going through and feeling.
Everyone wants to be listened to and understood. The ability to relate and empathize with your prospects through your message is the best way to captivate your audience.
When you read a website, it should tell a story. It should directly reflect the problems your potential customers face, the solutions you offer, and the testimonials of outcomes you have provided.
If you don’t have a straightforward customer journey, click here to develop your own.
Equally Important is the Design
Good copy will help the designer design.
And a good designer will know where and how to elevate the copy for a better user experience.
Design is about more than pretty pictures and how your audience perceives your brand. More importantly, it is about providing a good user experience, driving them to where they need to go or where they need to look.
For example, suppose a copywriter writes three essential bullet points. In that case, the designer can make choices to emphasize the importance of that copy through animation, buttons or eye-catching static imagery. Copy-influenced design leads to easily digestible content by the end user, your target audience.
There is a balance between static and dynamic design. Too many graphical elements moving in your design are distracting and can be too much for your eyes. While the opposite is true for a completely static website, it gets boring.
A fair warning, the more design you implement into a website, the more it can cost. Design hours and the amount of programming needed to launch a site go hand in hand.
CanOps needed help describing what they do and adding design to help showcase who they are.
Once they came on board with Stealth and launched their new website in September 2022, we saw a 150% increase in organic sessions and users.
Your Website is Up and Running. Now What?
Sadly, having a website is not enough to increase new users, traffic, or engagement. Your customers engage through multiple channels such as social media, email, mobile apps, and in-person interactions. An omnichannel approach considers all these touchpoints to provide a consistent and seamless customer experience, leading to increased engagement and customer loyalty.
Hence, at the beginning of this blog, we said you need to have a goal.
And to determine that goal, you need to know the following:
What could you offer your customers for free to give you their information?
What are the pain points your customer is facing?
Where are they living in the digital realm?
What’s the best point of contact?
What are your follow-ups?
What kind of content could you give them that would make your potential customers buy?
There are always more questions and content to gather from your business, employees, and evangelists to deliver the best results possible.
Ready to Start Your Web Design Project?
A website is essential for any business in today’s digital age. It serves as the foundation of your marketing efforts, connecting all of your efforts into one central location.
It’s essential to keep your target audience in mind and create valuable content. But working with a Saskatoon web design agency can ensure your website makes a positive impression and achieves better results.
Working with a web design agency can help you get your website up and running quickly and efficiently. An agency is an extension of your team, with multiple experts in different fields. They can help understand and deliver messaging around your audience’s pain points, produce a beautiful, well-running website, and provide one point of contact for a smooth process. With the help of an agency, you’ll achieve better results, with a higher and faster return on investment for your website.
We don’t just provide websites locally. We have served clients across Canada and the United States – Including web design services in Toronto and web design services in New York. We have you covered.
