How to Plan for Great Web Design
It may seem like it’s urgent and you need to get your website up as fast as possible to help build your business and gain credibility with your clients. If you want a great web design, proper planning will save you a lot of time and money, and make your website much more useful and professional. Remember Abe Lincoln’s famous quote – “If I had 5 hours to chop down a tree, I would spend 4 of them sharpening my axe”… For more information on Summit Business Marketing’s approach to web design and how we eliminate the complaints most web designers get, click here.
What do you want your website to do for you?
Is your website like an online brochure? Your website can work hard for you if you plan properly and work with the right business marketing coach and web designer. Your website can help your clients get more information, gather their contact information or use forms to collect more information, sell products or services for you, collect money … and it doesn’t even have to take breaks and you don’t have to write any performance reviews 🙂
Identify your target niche market.
Determine your ideal clients. How can you define them and create a narrow niche? What are their needs and how can you use your website to cater to them? What is the main problem you’re solving and how are you different from your competition?
Get to know your competition and determine what’s unique and special about you.
Search on Google for competitive websites. Type in keyword phrases that you think your clients would type in to find products and/or services like yours. Model the “big money” companies – many of them have spend millions on research – colors, buttons, locations of functions, font, specific wording, etc… send this information and the best domains to your web designer.
Map out the design, pages and navigation.
The best websites have very logical and intuitive navigation and information flow. You might want to use a flipchart, dry-erase board or computer software to mind-map your site. How many pages should your website have? Some standard pages are: Home, About Us, Products/Services, Portfolio, Testimonials, FAQs, News, Privacy Policy, Contact Us. Here’s a word document/web sitemap template you can use to map out your site:
To delete a page, post, sidebar or footer element, simply click on the object and press “delete”. To create another one, simply click on one and use the ctrl-d function to duplicate it, then click in the text box to modify it.
How will you drive traffic to your website?
This step is extremely important unless you have unlimited time and money for your marketing budget! If you do proper market research and get the right domain name up front and optimize your site for the best keywords, you won’t have to drive traffic to your site at all – the traffic will come to you. Traditional marketing will augment this, and you’ll have a huge advantage on your competition. Call me today to find out how to get started (530) 426-8404.
Jim Kaspari
Summit Business Marketing
Business Coaching Services . Web Design . SEO . Marketing Consultation
p.530.426.8404 | f.440.425.6094