5 things you need to consider before designing your website

Are you planning on creating a website?

Did you recently start a business and need a presence online? We’re here to help you get started on the right foot with an awesome website.

As professional Squarespace website designers since 2015, and have helped more than 1000 business owners worldwide succeed online with incredible websites, we know the inner workings of creating websites that attract, engage, and inspire online audiences.

A website for your business is now considered essential since we live in a digital-first world. A website can provide your potential customers with a wide range of information about yourself and your company, reduce the number of questions flooding your inbox, and help you build a deeper emotional connection with your audience, which will lead to an increased number of inquiries and sales.

Before you embark on the journey of creating your own website or hiring someone to do it for you, we thought that it may be beneficial that we share with you, our list of the five most important things to consider before designing a website:

What is your goal?

Before you begin designing your website, we recommend you do some thorough planning to establish the objectives and goals for your website to deliver. Everyone has different goals for creating a website, and it's best to align yours with your business objectives. Here are some goals you may want to consider for your website to achieve:

·       Brand awareness

·       Expert positioning

·       Increasing inquiries

·       Growing sales

·       Expanding internationally

What do you stand for?

In an oversaturated market, having a great product is no longer sufficient. It is vital that your business has a unique brand identity underpinned by a strong brand strategy, that differentiates you from your competitors and positions you as the best choice for your desired clients.

Clients nowadays expect a lot more from the brands they choose to support than ever before, and they only buy from brands whose values are most closely aligned with their own.

Brands can therefore differentiate themselves and attract desired customers by developing a brand strategy that aligns with their desired clients' goals, operational procedures, and values.

How? If you’re trying to attract eco-aware customers, then your business goals should focus on protecting the environment, and your value chain should be designed with ethical production practices in mind.

Defining and being able to articulate what your brand stands for, will help your web design agency to understand and come up with ideas on how to reflect your values and personality through communication means such as branding, design, copywriting, and photography.

Do you need help with strategic or creative direction?

We offer brand mentorship that will help you gain clarity, focus, and plan for your brand.

What story do you want to tell?

Every brand has a unique story to tell, a problem to solve, or a desire to satisfy. And it is the brand's story that draws customers to them.

A brand can position itself as a solution to a problem that its client may be experiencing, such as moving from A to B (Uber) or finding a unique short stay in a different city (Airbnb).

On the other hand, a brand can tap into its clients’ dreams and desires, promising to make them healthier and fitter (the Body Coach) or make their life experience more magical through technology (Apple).

A unified visual identity that encompasses a logo system, colour palette, typography, illustrations, photography, and copywriting will help communicate and tell that story to the desired audiences. Those customers whose problems or desires match those that the brand solves will be drawn to the brand and become its clients.

Who is your target audience?

We spoke about attracting your desired audience, but how do you know who those customers actually are? In order to understand that, you can ask questions in online forums or in Facebook groups. You can also utilize Google to do industry-related keyword searches and try to figure this out by analysing the websites of your competitors.

Things to look at and analyse are as below:

·       Price range

·       Offering

·       Features and Benefits

·       Language

·       Visual identity

Once you compared those, try to think what kinds of people would choose to buy from those brands, and start putting together customer avatars that include age, gender, socioeconomic status, location, disposable income, and so on.

It is very important to understand the people that your website should be attracting so that you can work with your web design agency to create a brand identity that would appeal to those types of customers.

What is your unique selling point?

A unique selling point helps define your company's distinct market positioning, setting the tone for the solution that you offer, and making it uniquely different from any of your competitors. Ask yourself those questions:

·       Do you have a unique talent?

·       Do you have unique resources?

·       A completely new approach?

·       A patent for something that was never done before.

·       Are you delivering your service faster, better, or in a unique way?

Your website should clearly emphasize your unique selling point so that it is clear to your customers why they should choose you.

How? You can simply write a statement under the heading Why Choose Us? explaining your reasons why in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand way.

Talk to our Squarespace Expert Team!

Are you currently trying to launch a website and could use the help of a friendly and experienced team? We’re here to help! We have a step-by-step process that will help ensure that your website ticks all the above five boxes and is optimised for success.

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