Define Your Objective and Watch Your Website go to Work For You

What business problems are driving you nuts? What are your big biz dreams? Consider these when thinking about your new website, you’d be surprised by the simple ways it can help.

In both my Ultimate Guide to Preparing for Your Website Project and my 5 Things You Need to Have Ready Before Hiring a Web Designer posts I wrote that you need to have an objective.

You need to understand why you need a website. 

I know it seems obvious; of course your business needs a website. True, but that’s just the baseline reason.

Maybe your website looks terrible. That is a reason to re-design it, aesthetics do matter.  Still, that’s not enough.

Designing a website is not just about making it look cool or pretty.

There are REAL ways a website can help your business make more money, run more efficiently and save you time.

The first step in defining your website objective is thinking about frustrations you have with your business. Do you need more clients? Are free consultations eating up all your time? Is there too much administration and busy work involved in your billing process? Would you like more people to get on your mailing list?

Make a list of your business problems, even if you think your website can’t help you with them. Then make a list of your business goals; again forget about whether or not you think a website can help you with them.

Obviously the next thing I’m going to say is that your website probably can help you solve, or at least alleviate, many of your business problems and help you achieve many of your business goals.

A website may not be the only thing that solves your problems and achieves your goals, but it can certainly be a loyal workhorse supporting these efforts.

Let’s look at some examples:

Objective: Get me more customers
How your website can help:  This is pretty straight forward. You’ve seen it on a million websites, a pop-up with a lead magnet asking visitors to sign up for your list. You’ve seen it before because it works. You can also strategically place newsletter sign-up forms throughout your site, on your about page or at the end of blog posts for example.

Objective: I need more time!
How your website can help: Adding a form or questionnaire before allowing someone to contact you can serve as a filter for time wasters. If someone isn’t willing to answer a few questions before contacting you, they probably aren’t ready for what you’re offering. This can save you enormous amounts of time.

True story: An acquaintance of mine has an interior design business. She offers free consultations as a means of generating leads. She was spending so much time in these consults - understandably wanting to build her pipeline. The problem was none of these people ever engaged her services. She had a simple contact form on her website. This allowed anyone and everyone to email her asking questions and requesting more information. She responded to all of them. A detailed form with required fields would transform an endless stream of busy work into a productive, potentially profitable exchange between her and people who were truly interested in her services.

Another way to get back some of your time from answering questions and requests is to provide a detailed FAQ or a series of FAQs around your services. Hint: Save questions that you repeatedly get from customers, clients or leads and add them to your frequently asked questions page.

Objective: Show people I’m legit.
How your website can help: Aesthetics do matter. Great photography, a thoughtful, logical layout and clean typography really level up your site and your brand. A well designed websites signals your level of professionalism to potential customers and clients. Why is this important?  Because it gives them the confidence to pull the trigger and hire you. 

A recent client, an executive coach, told me her website objective was to ‘Inspire trust and professionalism’.  A DIY website with copy all over the place 6 different fonts, an incoherent color palette and a snapshot of her someone took with an iPhone won’t do that. It just won’t.

If a client loves working with her and passes her information on to a colleague, a website is her first introduction.

A website must ‘inspire trust and professionalism’ not make a potential client think ‘Oh. Hmm. Maybe not. Why is she so expensive?’ 

These are just a few ways to define objectives that help you create a website that works for you. Use your business problems and dreams as inputs and watch your website become your best sales rep, virtual assistant or 24 hour receptionist!