In today's digital age, having a website is not just an option but a necessity for service-based businesses, no matter how big or small you are. But simply having a website is not enough. To truly harness the power of your online presence, you need a well-thought-out website strategy.
So what is a website strategy?
A website strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines how your website will achieve your business goals. It involves defining your target audience, setting clear objectives, designing user-friendly layouts, creating compelling content, and implementing tools to measure success. A solid website strategy aligns your online efforts with your overall business objectives, ensuring every aspect of your website works towards driving leads, conversions, and growth.
Why should you have a website strategy?
Any business who has a purpose for their website (which should be every business with a website) will have a website strategy. The real question is why you should have a good one. Having a website strategy is having a website goal - be that for customers to contact you via your website or to buy your products online. A good website strategy will enable your business to have:
Focus and direction: A clear strategy provides a roadmap, ensuring every element of your website serves a purpose. Without a strategy, your website may become a collection of disjointed pages that fail to engage visitors or convert them into leads.
Improved user experience: A well-planned strategy prioritises user experience (UX), making it easy for visitors to navigate your site, find information, and take desired actions. Happy users are more likely to become loyal customers - so the happier you can make them, the more money they can make you.
Enhanced SEO: Search engine optimisation (SEO) is vital for driving organic traffic. Having a website strategy will enable your website to be well structured and clear, with an easy-to-follow sales journey - all of which are points the search bots love and will help you to rank higher on SERPs (search engine result pages).
Higher conversion rates: By understanding your audience's needs and designing your site accordingly, you can significantly increase the number of visitors you can convert to leads. Setting your main website goal will enable you to focus specifically on that journey, without getting distracted in your designs.
Measurable results: With a strategy in place, you can track key performance indicators (KPIs) and measure the success of your website, allowing you to make informed decisions and continuous improvements.
Forming a website strategy that's right for your business
Every business is different, and so no website strategy will be the same. This means we can't tell you exactly how to write your strategy, but we have pulled together where you need to start:
1. Define your website goals: Start by identifying what you want to achieve with your website. Common goals include generating leads, increasing brand awareness, providing information, or selling products/services. Your goals will shape every aspect of your strategy. For example, if your primary goal is to generate leads, you might prioritise creating compelling calls-to-action leading to your contact form.
Example: A good example of goal-oriented website strategy can be seen on HubSpot's website. They have clear goals of lead generation, visible through their consistent and strategically placed CTAs of 'get a demo' and 'get started free' throughout all site pages.
2. Understand your audience: Research your target audience to understand their needs, preferences, and behaviours. This information should then guide your content and design choices, so that every design (and business) decision you make is tailored to meet your customers expectations and solve their problems.
3. Competitor analysis: Analyse your competitors' websites to identify strengths and weaknesses, looking at elements like design, content and user experience. This can help you understand what works in your industry and help you differentiate your site so you can stand-out and offer a USP.
4. Content strategy: Your website isn't something you can design once, publish and leave. At the very least, it's a live marketing tool and so not one that should be ignored. Part of your strategy should include how you'll continually gain content to your site- whether that's through promoting it on your social channels, publishing blogs or updating it with seasonal content.
5. Design and user experience: What do you want users to feel, learn and achieve from your website? What should it aesthetically look like? The actual website design is an important part of your strategy and can help bring a lot of individual elements together. Incorporate key UX design principles such as simplicity, consistency, and accessibility to enhance the overall user experience.
Example: Airbnb is renowned for its exceptional user experience. The site is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and designed to facilitate quick and easy bookings, which is their core website goal.
Implementing your website strategy
Planned out your website strategy and ready to get going? It's time to implement it! The important thing is to keep your new strategy front-of-mind. Every decision you make should link back to your defined website goal, and be targeted towards your ideal customer. Not sure on what decision to make? Put yourself in your customers shoes and do what's best, or needed, for them to get a step closer to your website goal.
We've collated our top tips for implementing your website strategy:
Choose the right platform: Select a website building platform that suits your needs. Wix and Squarespace are popular choices for small to medium businesses due to their ease of use, customisation options, and integrated tools. These platforms offer a range of templates and features that can help you implement your strategy effectively.
Design and build: Using your defined strategy, design and build your website. Keep your audience and goals at the forefront of every decision. Test your site thoroughly to ensure it functions correctly across all devices and browsers and use best practices like responsive design and intuitive navigation to enhance usability.
Content creation: Create and upload your content, including text, images, videos, and other media. Remember to make your content optimised for SEO, and to update it when relevant to help keep it fresh and relevant for your customers - especially if you expect customers to return relatively frequently.
Launch and promote: Once your site is ready, launch it and start promoting it through various channels like social media and marketing emails. We recommend you noting down your website performance before implementing your strategy, so you have benchmark performance to refer back to and measure any improvements.
Measuring the results of your strategy
Adding in a strategy should = more leads right? That's the goal - but without tracking your website performance, you'll simply never know. Measuring the results of your strategy is so important to allow you to understand how it's performing, and if there's any further tweaks you need to make to it. The first strategy you try isn't always the right one! You can measure your strategy success by:
Setting up analytics: Use tools like Google Analytics (or website builders like Wix have analytics already built into your dashboard) to monitor your website's performance. Track metrics like website traffic, bounce rate, average session length, and conversion rates. These provide insights into how well your site is performing and where improvements can be made.
Monitor KPIs: Regularly review your key performance indicators to measure progress towards your goals. The main KPI you measure against should be the main website goal you set (for example, the number of leads generated), but you should monitor secondary goals too if these are relevant (for example, email sign-ups). Monitoring KPIs helps you stay on track and adjust your strategy as needed.
Gather feedback: Collect feedback from users to understand their experience and identify areas for improvement. This can be done through surveys or feedback forms, or if you can't add in a survey to your website, reach out to family or friends for their feedback instead. User feedback provides valuable insights into how your site can better serve its audience.
Continuous improvement: Use the data and feedback you gather to make informed decisions about changes and updates to your website. Continuously optimise your site to better meet the needs of your audience and achieve your business goals.
Have we sold you on a website strategy?
Get ready to define your website strategy and unleash your websites success! Remember, your website is a dynamic asset – regularly measure its performance and make adjustments to your strategy to stay ahead in the competitive digital landscape.
Looking for help creating or implementing your strategy? Reach out to us to see how we can help your business thrive.