For a lot of people, the web seems like weird tech magic—you create something out of bits and bytes, and it somehow generates sales, right? For organizations redesigning their websites, the “process” might look like this:
- Build new website and launch it.
- …???…
- Profit!
Sounds pretty easy, right? Not so, friends. An updated design isn’t necessarily going to boost revenue or connect you with the right people just because it’s “new.” That expectation is not reality.
To get real mileage and actual results from your website, you need to take the time to think like your customer. Can they tell what you’re offering? Can they easily make a purchase? Can they tell how to contact you? If you’ve heard the term user experience, that’s what it is on a basic level: you want to design your website in a way that’s centered around what your customer needs to know, and directs the experience your customer will have.
Your Customer’s Journey
You can pretty safely make some assumptions about your customer’s first visit to your website. In all likelihood, they land on your homepage, thinking that maybe they could benefit from what you offer. Maybe you’ve had a conversation with them, or maybe they found you through a web search.
They’re not 100% sure they want to buy in, however. They don’t know much about you and may not even fully understand what you do! And if they can’t find what they need in a few short seconds, they’ll bounce away. (oh no!)
You’ve probably struggled to get what you needed from a website yourself. Think about a time you were on a company’s site trying to find pricing, hours, contact information, or even service or product offerings. What was your journey like? Were there words or functionalities that confused you? Could you find what you needed, or did you click around before getting frustrated and going elsewhere? What drew you in? What drove you away?
What’s Keeping Them From Saying Yes?
Ultimately, your website’s job is to make the right people feel 100% sure that they want what you offer. How do you get them to 100% sure? Give them what they need to know to get there, and make it easy to find.
That means helping them understand what you offer and what problem it will solve for them. That means building their trust in you and your expertise.
AND, it means NOT burying those offerings in a wall of text, behind a truckload of details and buzzwords that your potential customers don’t actually care about.
Start Driving The Bus: What Are You Actually Saying?
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Content Is Queen. The most beautiful and rich design in the world won’t get you where you want to go, if the right content isn’t there to back it up. Style matters, of course, but substance is what makes your brand communicate easily, stick in your audience’s minds, and speak to their hearts.
What do you need to tell them? Here are a few places to start looking for those hooks that will make them feel ready to say Yes to you:
- What are the common misconceptions about your work?
- What do your customers ask you about most often?
- What specialties do you offer? (or not offer?)
- And most importantly: how do they get started?
Are the gears in your brain already turning? That’s because this is A LOT to think about! It’s a key part of what we do when we design and build websites at Upswept, and it’s too important to gloss over. If you’re not sure where to go next, I’d love to help you out with a Strategy Session. Let’s talk it through!
Next time, we’ll go more deeply into why content strategy is so important to building an easy-to-use design, and how to start getting those results!