Creating a basic website is one thing, but crafting a website that converts is a whole other ball game. Here we continue our Build a Brand series and discuss what it takes to craft a converting website.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Understanding your target audience is the most important thing for all aspects of your business. Everything should be built around your customer base, especially your website. What are their likes, dislikes, age ranges, etc.? The best way to nail down your target audience is to create the persona of your ideal customer.
We detail everything you need to know about creating a customer persona in our article Building a Brand – What is a Customer Persona and Why Does it Matter?
Understanding Colors & Fonts
When creating a brand and before you ever start building a website, you need to pick colors and fonts and stick to them. These colors and fonts should be used in all your content and on your website, newsletters, products, and any other company-related content. Whatever you choose, they should grab attention, be simple and streamlined, and be memorable.
We discuss the importance of colors and fonts in our article Building a Brand – The Art of Colors & Fonts.
Elements of a Perfect Logo
Once you have nailed down the colors and fonts that best represent your brand, you can create a logo. This logo will be used on everything that relates to your brand, so creating the perfect one that is eye-catching and memorable is key.
You can learn what it takes to craft the perfect logo in our article Building a Brand – Elements of a Perfect Logo.
Crafting a Converting Design
When trying to create a website that converts, you need to first understand your customer persona. Then you need to build your site map, create a layout, tie in your colors and fonts, and build authority. Let’s discuss each of these points.
Understanding Your Customer Persona
The best way to make a sale is to market your product or services to the right people. In order to do this, you need to understand the demographics of the people who need or want your products or services. Creating a customer persona is the best way to do this. A customer persona is basically a description of your ideal customer. It should include their age, gender, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, education level, profession, and any other information you can think of that is relevant. Once you have this, you can craft everything towards this customer persona.
Build Your Sitemap
A sitemap is basically a blueprint of your website. It helps search engines crawl and index your website and tells them which ones are the most important. But aside from its purposes for search engines, building a site map before starting to actually create your website helps you to simplify things. You do not need to know any HTML for the most part if you are using a plug-and-play website builder like WordPress because it automatically creates one for you based on the settings you create for each page and blog post.
The goal of building a site map is to make it as simple as possible for visitors to navigate your website. First, you should make a list and identify what you need to have and sell your products and/or services. You want to keep it simple with short menus. The best strategy is to use the three-click method. Basically, if it takes more than three clicks to get to a page, it is too complicated.
For example, if you run a clothing website, you could have a menu that separates men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing. Under each of those menu tabs, you would then have the options of clothing i.e., shirts, pants, etc. When a visitor comes to your website, they should be able to click on the women’s tab and then shirts, which should take them to a page of options to scroll through. Once they find what they want, one more click, and they are on the product page.
Common menu tabs for most websites include:
- Homepage
- About
- Contact Us
- Shop
- Blog
Regardless of what menu tabs you need, the goal is to keep it as simple and streamlined as possible.
Create a Layout (Wireframe)
Once you have created your site map, the next step is to create a layout of your website. This process is also called wireframing, which is just the process of creating a two-dimensional visual of each page of your website. This can be something as simple as a drawing on a piece of paper. You can also
create them digitally using several different types of available software like Invision Freehand. Creating your wireframe digitally is great for sites that require a lot of detail.
This process creates a clear view of what your website will look like, helps you understand user flow and functionality, and maps out what you expect the intended behavior of visitors to be like. The graphics, coloring, and other visual details are typically kept to a minimum in the beginning stages of a wireframe.
When creating a wireframe for your website, you want to keep in mind the following:
- What action do you want your visitors to take? Do you want them to make a purchase, fill out a form, donate, etc.?
- What would your customer persona think of your website? Is it too complicated or just right? Put yourself in their shoes.
Once you have your wireframe complete, you can start building it on your platform.
Tie in Your Colors & Fonts
Once you have your sitemap and wireframe laid out and ready to go, the next step is to work in your previously chosen colors and fonts. This is the point where your website starts looking like an actual website.
On each page, you can fill in content with filler text until you are ready to add real content. You will notice that a lot of premade templates from website builders like WordPress or Wix come with this filler text. It looks like a bunch of gibberish. It is called Lorem Ipsum, and you can create your own for free using this website.
Stay tuned for our next article in our Building a Brand series on Creating Converting Copy. Join our email list to be alerted when it’s released.
Building Authority
You want to highlight what sets you apart from competitors. What makes you unique, and why should they purchase from you instead? Another thing you need is customer testimonials and reviews. This is a MUST these days and is something that can make or break a sale.
If you are at the beginning stages of your business, you might not have many or any at all. That is OK, but you want to make sure you ask for reviews and testimonials from customers or clients. The best way to go about this is to send out an email a while after someone has purchased a product or utilized your service and ask them for a review. Sometimes offering a discount on their next purchase gives them a little more motivation to create a review or testimonial.
How to Start a website
To get started building a website quickly, you can utilize website builders like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and others. These are great for those on a tight budget that just need simple websites that do not require a lot of detail. They are not ideal for businesses that want to stand out and grow online.
Work With a Digital Marketer, Like Us
As a digital storefront of your business, your website is your second biggest asset, and you should be investing in it. Many customers base their purchasing decisions on the feel and flow of a website. If you’re like most business owners, you likely don’t have the time necessary to create a website that converts. Having a digital marketing team on your side can save yourself a lot of time and hassle and focus on other aspects of your business that only you can attend to. The end result will be a clean, streamlined website that converts, represents your brand, and is easy for your customers to navigate.
Our team has years of experience working with clients and helping them build a website that tells the story of their brand, converts visitors into customers, and helps them grow their business online. We offer absolutely free consultations, get started to learn more about our small business website services.
