How To Get More Website Traffic
Before you design a website, work with a good website builder to find the goals you want to achieve. With so many types of websites out there, you should start by deciding which kind will help you meet your goals. Oftentimes, you want to match your website design to your business objectives. You may need one of these types of websites to accomplish your goal:

• A business website to find leads or prospects
• A portfolio website to showcase your work through methodology, service, and reviews
• An online store to sell products
• A membership site to grow your services
• Launch a new program or service
• These are just some of the types of websites that can help you narrow your focus on the design of your website and what will ultimately get you to your goal.

Let’s Start The Design Process
Once you work with a web designer on the type of website that you need, it’s time to start working on the design of your site. As you move forward with designing a website, you’ll find that your choice of elements to include will vary depending on what you want to accomplish. For example, if you want to build a website that promotes your business, try arranging your content by the services that you want to offer. This may determine how many pages your website will require and how much copy for each page will need to be written. If you want to display the work that you created to advertise your skills, a portfolio format and an online store can be a good combination to bring you success with building an audience and selling your work. If you want to build a website that will display your professional skills, creating a website with the goal of growing your career, a simple and professional resume website might suit your needs perfectly. This could augment your profile in Linkedin and will look great on any resume that links back to your resume site.

Defining The Website Platform And Integration Tools
There are many factors to consider when building a website. Most do-it-yourselfers could figure out how to use WordPress to build out a website but depending on your needs, the learning curve can be quite extensive. A good website designer can walk you through the process and get you on the right track and have your site up fast. Some of the considerations you will want to work through are:

What content management system (CMS) makes the most sense? To give you an idea of how many people use WordPress, approximately 41% of all websites in the world are powered by WordPress. Wix is also highly rated. Squarespace is also a good website for creative professionals. Shopify is the platform for e-commerce but WordPress has a Woo-Commerce plugin that is used by millions of users to power their e-commerce shops. It’s best to review this with your web designer, who can give you advice on the best CMS for developing your site.
Depending on the content management platform, each has its unique tools to make them shine. Most of these CMS have plugins that can customize the functionality and design of the platform. For example, WordPress and Shopify have themes that can give a specific look and unlock the functionality of the CMS platform.
Hosting a website will also be a major consideration that you will want to work through. Most website builders have their own hosting plan to host your website so that it’s available 24/7. You can also opt to purchase your own hosting with Inmotion, Bluehost, or Name Hero, just to name a few. The cost is minimal at first but can be more expensive in the long run. Your web designer will usually package hosting and maintenance together and bring you cost savings and the convenience of having all the maintenance done by your web designer.
Your Domain Name is massively important in consideration of what resonates with your marketing and the brand you want to build. You will want to consider the website’s name and check to see what is currently available. Domain names can be purchased at your domain seller of choice – Godaddy, Hostgator, and Name Hero are just a few domain sellers that you can use. The domain extension is an important consideration when picking a name for your website. A dot.com, dot.net, or dot.org will affect how people view your website and trust your website. In general, choose dot.com when this extension is available. Dot.net is usually associated with network services so choose this only if it pertains to your business. Domain extensions usually don’t affect SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when you are trying to rank on the top pages of Google. The bottom line is you want to pick a domain name that will be congruent with your brand and establish authority and expertise with the contents of your website.

Defining The Website Layout
Your website designer can help you with choosing the right platform, template, layout, and integrations that will make your website shine and be available to your audience for the purposes intended. Once you have worked out the logistics of the CMS, functionality, themes, and hosting – you will need to get to the website’s design. What will it look like? What content should I place? How many pages will I need? Do I need to integrate a CRM? Will I be offering a membership? Will I be selling digital content like a course or physical products?

Once you’re logged into your platform of choice, it’s time to conceptualize your website layout. If you want to start from scratch, you may want to map out your website’s design on paper before you start to drag and drop. However, another option is to use a template, which is a pre-designed layout created by a professional designer.

WordPress offers an extensive library of free website templates. Your web designer will also have options for you depending on your needs and what page builder is available. Your website builder may use Gutenberg, Elementor, or Divi page builder to build out your website. They may opt to use a Shopify site and incorporate their tools to maximize the functionality of the CMS platform of choice. Whichever CMS platform you choose, you’ll find designs for every kind of website. Start by browsing through some options with your designer until you find a layout that you love.

A good design should start with a wireframe to lay out the content that you want to include in your website. A wireframe does not have to be extensive and is oftentimes a black-and-white sketch of what content you want and where you want to place it. The wireframe should give you an idea of what type of content you want and where it makes the most sense to place it. There’s no better way to get your web design juices flowing than by seeking creative inspiration. Your web designer may also have in their toolbelt applications that can visually map out the wireframe to assist in the development process. A good way to get inspiration is to look at website examples that got it right from your perspective. Grab a pen and paper, and jot down ideas you like as you browse through some of the best website designs and review this together with your web designer. This collaboration and brainstorming, in the beginning, will go a long way to getting you to your end goal for your website.

An effective wireframe will also start to address the navigation of the user to other pages and information that they are looking for. In order to provide the best website navigation experience for your clients, your pages need to be properly connected to one another. Make sure visitors can easily find the pages they need by adding a navigation menu and implementing internal links to quickly get the page or section that your customers are looking for. Navigation-Menus can showcase the ease of movement from the standard horizontal header menu to the condensed hamburger menu (usually found on a mobile view). Try not to make the menus too deep as this may affect the user experience and SEO. Flatter websites make easier navigation.

Great Copy Makes All The Difference
Now that you’ve set the foundations for your design and created a wireframe of your basic layout, it’s time to get practical and prepare the content that will be featured on your website. This includes your images, text, logo, videos, and more. You can develop these content materials yourself or find professional copywriters and videographers to help you. Your web designer or their marketing company may also help you assemble your content and offer services to create winning copy, videos, pictures, and functionality.

It’s a good idea to use your own material and content specific to your business as much as possible to ensure you’re offering unique and branded content. If you’re not using original content, just make sure to acquire your resources legally and ensure that you stay free and clear of misuse of other media libraries. Envato Elements at envato.com is one place that has a large library of content that you can use for a low monthly subscription. Pixelbay.com is also a good free option for pictures and videos with a wide selection of media. While having plenty of media on your website is great, remember to always put quality over quantity. We will get into the use of content marketing and inbound marketing techniques in future articles. In an era of increased distractions and short attention span, the best way to catch your visitors’ attention is to showcase your best content.

Finally, make sure your content shows your brand as much as possible. Think of your website as an online salesperson – everything from your logo, written content, and the tone of voice of the speaker or article, to the colors and fonts you use should reflect who you are or what your brand identity is. People trust brands – and will buy from the trusted brands before they buy from some unknown.

Every business is unique, and so is every website. Your content will set you apart from your competitors. However, most people have become accustomed to having some standard pages on a website to establish trust that you are a legitimate company. If you’re going for a multi-page website design, here are some traditional web pages you should consider having:

Homepage: It’s the first introduction to you and your business. Since it’s likely to be the first thing your visitors and potential new clients will see, aim for a homepage design that is eye-catching, clean, and speaks to what your brand is about. It should clarify who you are and what you do. Most importantly, it should seek to drive the customer to some action that you want them to take; CTA must be clear. Make sure your branding logo, colors, and name of your business are prominently displayed. You will also want to design the user experience so that navigation, speed, and finding information are easy for the user. The longer they stay and enjoy the experience of your website, the more likely they will build trust and come back for future engagements.
About Us page: The best way to approach this page is to tell your story, and share your values, methods, and what you stand for to your customers. It’s also important to include personal touches so that your clients know they are dealing with real people who want to help them solve a problem.
Contact page: When your future clients want to reach out to you, they should be able to get hold of you pretty easily. Depending on how you want to interact with your clients, you may include your phone number, postal address, and/or business email address. I’m also a proponent of having a contact form available so your clients can opt-in to your email list for future opportunities for email marketing. Having your social media accounts easily available is also important to establish credibility and show that you have a social presence when interacting with your audience. You can also consider adding a live chat widget (messenger, WhatsApp, etc) that gives visitors the chance to reach out and get a fast response.
Your Product or Service Page: The product or service page is where your visitors come to discover what you have to offer. If you and your web designer do a good job, this could lead to your clients taking out their credit cards and purchasing your goods or services. This is where your goals and design early in the project can make a difference in how the information will be displayed and how the transactions will be processed on a Shopify site, WooCommerce page, or membership or digital course site. Begin with the end in mind applies here.
A Blog: Content marketing can be a great method to attract traffic to your site and increase your SEO ranking for displaying higher on the Google Search Results Page. Creating a blog boosts your reputation as an expert, helps you foster a loyal community, and is an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Your web designer or a good copywriter can assist you with generating effective sales copy that will convert sales. Your story is more valuable than you think when generating content that will grow your brand.
Testimonials: An honest testimonials page is a wonderful addition to your website design. Social proof and user-generated content can help drive sales and prove that you can deliver the right product or service to your customers. There is no better marketing tool than social proof of customer loyalty and testimonials about your service, product, and brand.
FAQ page: An optional page or section to have but is an effective way to get the customers the answers they need quickly. The FAQ should provide visitors with quick and simple answers to common questions in an organized manner. It can save time by answering questions quickly and provide a great experience for users.
Testing Your Website
Once your website is built, integrations are connected, and you have defined how they display to the site visitor; it’s time to make sure it all works. Combine manual browsing of the site on a variety of devices with automated site crawlers to identify everything from user experience issues to simple broken links.

Launch
Hopefully, the design, build, and testing are complete, and you are ready to launch your website. Oftentimes, this process does not go perfectly according to plan. There may still be some elements that need fixing. Web design is a fluid and ongoing process that requires constant maintenance. A key point to note about the launch stage is that it’s nowhere near the end of the job.

Maintenance
Your content management system is never really finished. The initial launch or rebuild is just the beginning phase. It will grow and adjust to reflect what your business is prioritizing. Your business can continually run user testing on new content and features, monitor analytics, and refine your messaging. Your website design can help you manage updates to the application, back up the site, perform updates to the site, and secure the site on a hosting platform.

For more information on building your business website, e-commerce store, or membership site – contact [email protected] for help.