Having a strategy while creating a website is a good idea since it will facilitate the design process and help you accomplish your website’s objectives. This indicates alignment between the website communication strategy and the web design approach. This implies that the website design should be consistent with the methods used to connect with clients and convey the company’s message to them.
Stated differently, optimising the appearance of your website does not contradict its intended use or objectives.
We’ll walk you through each stage of creating a web design strategy so you can launch your new website with confidence:
Remember that a website is a company’s way of communicating with potential customers. It follows that the organisation providing the message and any potential clients it may reach must be properly defined initially.
1. Develop a distinct identity that embodies your brand
Just as much as your plan needs buyer personas, it also needs vendor personas. This is the company profile you wish to include on your website. Your company must project a certain attitude, whether it’s youthful and innovative, well-known and established, formal and serious, warm and approachable, etc. The seller image should encompass personality attributes as well as a certain colour scheme, tone, and “voice,” as well as important components on a website that foster trust.
a) You will list some characteristics of this brand’s website based on your research thus far.
b) The firm persona ought to be written on a card, much as the buyer personas.
2. Create customer personas as a strategic tool
This is the initial stage of creating a website design plan. The site asks you a few questions about who it is intended for.
Cards including details on the audience’s psychographics, occupation, income, and life circumstances might be used as buyer personas. Using this strategy, you may create groups within your audience depending on these and other variables, and then develop your message around what you’ve discovered.
Buyer personas may assist you in segmenting your audience and determining the best ways to connect with all of the many types of people who are most likely to become customers.
3. Include a buyer’s journey in your web design plan
You must ensure that visitors to your website follow certain steps when perusing the site in order to establish a connection between the business and its potential clients. This is represented by the buyer journey, which follows the decision-making process from conducting research to making a purchase.
One well-known consumer journey model is AIDA:
A: Awareness
At this stage, individuals become aware of the issue and begin to search for a solution. This is the moment for your company to start utilising branding awareness tactics. Imagine if after bringing a dog home, someone discovered that there was fur all over the place. They search for items that will facilitate the removal of the fur. They may consider purchasing anything from a pet store or upgrading to a more powerful vacuum. Someone may type “how to get rid of dog fur” into the Google search bar. This implies that the solution needs to appear in the search engine results. Suppose that you own a pet supply store. You may create a blog article or run advertisements for products that lessen the quantity of fur in the house. This is the time when the dog owner finds out about your pet store and the products you provide.
I: Interest
The owner of our dog has now focused his Google searches and discovered that, out of all the products, there is one called FURminator that appears intriguing.
D: Desire
The owner of the dog is examining FURminator product reviews and contrasting prices and brands. He even goes so far as to watch YouTube movies where a lovable Samoyed is “FURminated.”
A: Action to purchase
Following an advertisement for the FURminator, our dog’s owner makes the purchase.
There are several customer journey frameworks available besides the AIDA model. There are others, and which one you choose will depend on how intricate your company is. But as you attempt to move customers towards a purchase, bear in mind that, regardless of the style you choose, it’s critical to provide them with compelling touchpoints at every turn.
4. Above all, familiarise yourself with your rivals/ competitors
It’s critical to visit your competitors’ websites. What aspects of their business are successful, what may be improved, and how can your website and offer stand out from the competition?
Examining the competition is useful for the following reasons:
using the research already conducted by rivals to determine what functions well and what doesn’t. determining the issues that rivals are facing and how to address them.
Discover how you can fill some of the gaps in the market that your rivals haven’t filled.
determining what sets your website apart from the competition so that consumers will remember it favourably
5. What is the website’s purpose? (Highly significant to the design of your website)
It’s time to pose the crucial query: for what purpose is the website intended? A website may have one or more of the following objectives:
Boost site traffic, generate more leads, convert more leads into customers, engage users more, cut down on abrupt site visitors, and encourage longer site visits.
It is ideal to have one primary aim and three ancillary objectives that complement the primary goal and follow directly from it. Your website may have a distinct design depending on these objectives, with crucial elements placed strategically to assist you achieve them.
6. Creating a mood board is a crucial step in your web design strategy
Making a mood board is a creative approach to organise various ideas and prepare ready for a new job. It’s a website’s initial polished version before the actual web design process starts. It provides a broad preview of the website’s appearance to users.
7. Include your brand strategy in the layout of your website
Now is the time to give a brief description of the brand, including its message and unique selling points. In order to accurately characterise the brand, you need to respond to each of the following inquiries:
What is the brand’s purpose?
What position does the business have in the industry?
How would you articulate the company’s promise?
What is the meaning behind the name? What type of remarks are possible regarding it?
What would you say about the brand’s personality?
You will be in a better position to properly integrate the brand strategy into the website design plan once you have provided comprehensive answers to these questions.
In summary
You need a well-designed website if you want to attract more visitors. Since your website serves as the public face of your company, you want it to seem professional and appealing. You must have a strategy before you can begin developing the design of your website. You will come to regret not having a plan early on, and your CRM and ROI will suffer. You will benefit in several ways from keeping your website’s main page as straightforward as feasible.
One of the best methods to increase the perceived trustworthiness of your company is to provide social evidence. Most consumers who wish to make a purchase visit a brand’s website. By displaying the reviews left by previous customers, you may ensure that they make a purchase from you.
Easy-to-use, mobile-friendly websites receive the most hits. Users are apt to abandon your website if it is difficult to navigate and contains a lot of technical details. Write in a concise, clear, and understandable manner.