“Complete your outdoor tasks, and arrange your work in the field; afterward you can build your house” (Proverbs 24:27).
Did you know that there’s a lot of prep that has to happen before a designer starts creating a website? As a brand and web designer for Catholic businesses, I’ve realized over time that while we all know what a website is, and many of us decide to have one for ourselves or our businesses, most people don’t know what needs to happen in order to simply start designing a site, let alone launch one.
A successful website comes out of a partnership between client and designer, and is less of a transactional relationship. For clients, coming to this relationship with some prep work done beforehand helps facilitate a smooth web design project, allowing the designer to provide feedback, offer suggestions, and apply their expertise to create a website that moves the client’s business forward.
1. Set Goals
When you set goals for your career or your business, your website should be built in conjunction with those goals. For instance, if you’re an e-commerce brand, your business goal may be to increase sales tenfold by the end of the year. With that in mind, what do you want people to do when they land on your website to help achieve that goal? It may be to guide them to the shop page or use a discount code to entice new customers. Set this goal for the entire website and use it to make design decisions.
Following that, determine the goal of each page of the website. They should all support the overarching goal of the entire site. For instance, if you’re a service provider and your visitor is on your About page, is the goal to encourage people to book a discovery call or send you an email?Regardless, your content should resonate quickly and drive people to do what you want them to do.
2. Decide on pages
Naturally, as you’re determining the goals of each page, you’ll decide on what pages you’ll have in your site. Typically, there’s a Home page, which serves as your “front door” to introduce you, your business, and your brand. After that, the pages you have can differ depending on your business, offerings, and industry.
If you’re a service provider, you may have pages like: Home, About, Services, and Contact. If you’re an e-commerce brand, you may have pages like: Home, About, Shop and Contact. Each page should have a specific purpose aligned with its respective goals and be determined intentionally.
3. Write Your Copy
As the client, don’t assume that your web designer will write your copy. You’re the best person to determine what should be said on each page, but if writing isn’t your strong suit (especially writing for websites), consider hiring a copywriter. There are tons of professional copywriters out there who understand how to write for people’s extremely short attention spans and how to incorporate sales psychology, brevity, and customization to make your website’s words effective and uniquely you.
If you do decide to write your own copy, here are a few things to consider:
As mentioned, people have very short attention spans 一 eight seconds 一 so keep it short, direct, and clear.
Avoid industry jargon or overly flowery language. Think about how you sound when you speak to a friend or colleague and write in that voice.
Think about structuring your copy like an article:
One short, attention-grabbing headline
A one- to two-sentence supportive subheadline
One to two short paragraphs of body copy
Utilize resources online! Not only does Catholic Women in Business have tons of articles about writing copy, but we have copywriters in our Facebook Group who can help.
4. Gather Your Content: Images, Video, Links
Written content is important, but we’re also very visual creatures, so visual content is just as essential to your site. Collect images that support your content, no matter what industry you’re in (yes, even if you’re in something like mathematics or law). To make your site look more specifically you, having brand imagery (e.g. headshots, in-office action shots, and/or studio photos) from a photoshoot is ideal. If you don’t have those already, search for local photographers who can do a mini-photoshoot within a short time. Anything custom to you which provides several views of you and your work are great.
If you don’t have branded photos and can’t get a shoot done before you need to launch your site, there are workarounds. Lean on stock photography to help visualize your business. If you sell a product or a line of products, there are tutorials online on how to take images of your items with your own phone to look as professional as possible.
Additionally, if you’re an artist, displaying your artwork and illustrations is necessary of course. But even if you’re not in a creative industry, you can get creative by hiring an artist to illustrate parts of your business or brand to help your audience visualize and feel more connected to you. (We have these talents in our Facebook group too!)
Video is also effective for websites if you’re a media personality, a content creator, or educational content developer. Provide links that can be embedded on the site (i.e. from YouTube or Vimeo), or provide video files for your designer that can be uploaded to the site.
Don’t forget links: anywhere you’ve been featured online is great content for establishing credibility and trust, and it will help your site achieve its goals. Make sure to provide those links. Making your web designer search for them delays progress on your site.
5. Cover Your (and Your Visitors’) Assets
These days, legal pages are a non-negotiable part of your website. Having proper legal language ready for your Terms and Conditions (T&C) page and Privacy Policy page will prevent further delays for your designer to complete the site and launch it, and both pages will cover you as the website owner legally in case an unlikely issue arises with your website.
A Terms and Conditions page explains that you as the website owner are not liable for any issues that someone might encounter when visiting your site. It also establishes what a visitor can’t do, such as spamming or scraping your content.
A Privacy Policy page is like a contract between the website owner and the visitor. It states what information you’re collecting from them and how that information is protected. It essentially shows that you respect their privacy, protect their information, and are being clear and honest about how their data is used.
Extra credit: SEO and Accessibility
If you want to really help out your web designer and help the project both start and run even more smoothly, there are some additional things you can do. Read up on SEO and accessibility standards. These are essential for web designers to know these days, but, as a client, understanding the extra time and effort required to make a website easier to access and find can help you track metrics and maintain your site once your designer has handed it over post-launch.
Label your images accurately: labels like “IMG123.jpg” don't help with SEO or accessibility standards. Image file names should briefly describe what’s going on in the image in order to help search engines find them. For example: “custom-pink-rosary.jpg” for an image of a custom rosary with pink beads.
Provide Alt text and titles for images: To further meet accessibility standards, images must have alternative titles and text descriptions so viewers using tools like screen readers can get a clear idea of what each picture shows. Using the previous example, let’s say the image is the pink rosary draped on top of a bible. The title could be: “Custom Pink Rosary.” The alt text would be: “A custom rosary with pink beads laid on top of a bible.”
Provide a Title and Meta Description with keywords for each page: Think of this information as the book cover and brief story description of a book 一 the Title Tag is that clickable blue headline that you see in a search, and the Meta Description is the one to two lines of text that describe what the webpage is about. It’s like an elevator pitch for the page and is best written as clearly, honestly, and specifically as possible.
Whether you complete the extra credit or not, having everything else organized and prepared to hand off to your designer before they even start will set you both up for a smooth and successful website design process. Your designer won’t need to bug you for content, will have more clarity on what your site needs, and will be able to set up your site more efficiently on the backend. You’ll save time and, especially in business, time is money! Spend yours wisely with this preparation for your website.
Lisa Johnson is the Founder and Designer of Verve & Concord, a branding and design studio that helps Catholic female founders tell their brand stories. Her previous experience includes creating brands and designing digital, print and experiential materials for nonprofits and associations. Lisa is an alumna of the University of Florida. She still considers herself a Floridian despite being a Washington, DC resident for 15 years and counting, where she lives with her husband and son.
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