Do Good Design

Planning is perhaps the most important part of your website’s success.

Don’t plan your site well and you’ll lose barrels of money and time. Skip the planning, and you might as well open your wallet and throw your money in the toilet.

Why? Because if you rush right into “just getting a website,” you’ll end up constantly making revisions and fixes as you figure out what you want.

So many useless websites

The internet is cluttered with deadweight websites — sites that may look impressive, but don’t pull in the business. Their owners didn’t carefully map out ahead of time what their site needs to do and how.

While it’s not the sexiest stage in web design, it’s the planning of your web strategy that can make or break your website.

And the first question you need to ask is:
How much business do I need to get from my website?

All of your business? Most? Is your website your main marketing channel, or have other channels like word-of-mouth or seminars worked well?

If you need most or all of your business to come from your website, you’ll have to invest time and money in it. It’s that simple.

Here’s why: you’re competing with thousands of other websites.

Invest in a top-notch website

With so much to choose from, how will you stand out? Just having a website isn’t going to do it. Neither is buying into the get-rich-quick promises of some SEO (search engine optimization) salesmen or PPC (pay-per-click) vendors.

You’re going to need a top-notch website: one whose planning, writing, design and management sets its apart from everyone else.

It doesn’t have to be flashy, it doesn’t have to cost the earth, but neither is it something you can do all yourself or hire your next-door-neighbor’s grandson to do.

Or go for the business card website

However, here’s a secret I’ll let you in on: not everyone needs a top-notch website.

Some businesses just need a site to act as a business card, a quick reference for clients you’ve already contacted through other channels, like an face-to-face meeting or via a referral.

For a business who’s getting enough clients through other marketing channels, an all-singing, all-dancing website is overkill. Stick to a simple 5 page website with your contact details and services information.

So, let’s say you need a top-notch website because you want to get a lot of business through the internet. Now what?

It’s time for your web strategy.

Mapping your web strategy is where a good web designer or consultant makes all the difference. Their experience will help you think of what you need — and what you don’t — saving you a lot of time and money down the road.

What’s in a website strategy?

Part of the strategy you’ll devise with your designer will list what functionality you want, like a shopping cart, customer service area, contact form, database, etc.

You’ll also look at what areas of content you need on your website: the usual suspects like “Services” and “About Us” plus more specific areas that showcase your specialized knowledge to your audience in areas like “Tips and Tricks” or “Articles”.

The best part is where you have a look at your competitors’ websites as well as any that you personally like for whatever reason. By showing your designer real examples of what appeals to you, you’re helping them build a website that’s better suited to your needs and desires.

Measuring success

Once you’ve launched your website, you can use analytics (traffic monitoring software) to look at how your site is performing against the goals you set.

So if one of your goals was to get 15 people contacting you per month from your website, you’ll be able to see whether your site is delivering on that goal. If it’s not, you can look at improving your copy, or analyse where people are leaving your site before the contact page.

We’ll look in depth at analytics in Stage 4: Manage Your Site in later articles.

Bottom line

Take the time upfront and plan what your website needs to do, and you’ll be well down the road to a kick-ass website. Then relish the fact you did it right and spend some of that extra cash on something fun.

Ready to take action? Why not:

Start working on your own Web Strategy: Download as a Word document or as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file.

Find out more about the our“top-notch” and “business card” website packages.

Contact us to find out how Do Good websites can grow your business.