What Are The Top Website Mistakes?

Are you ready to turn your website concept into a highly successful reality? Designing a creative website that truly captivates and converts requires a strategic step-by-step process. An artists, we often focus just on the visual and while that is all part of it, user-flow, copy and optimizing for search engines is crucial if you want your website to work for you. As also part business owner, your business website should be meticulously crafted. And as small business owners our time and resources are limited so it’s important to focus on what really will make a difference. In this post, I’m going to guide you through the process of designing a highly successful website, from concept to reality.

Firstly, it’s important to establish a clear vision for your website. Understand your target audience, their needs, and preferences. Once we have a solid foundation and understand who we are reaching, it’s time to focus on aesthetics. We then develop a visually pleasing design that aligns with your brand voice and appeals to your target audience. Customer first, website second.

The next step is optimizing your website for search engines. This is a crucial step for attracting organic traffic. I mean otherwise, who is going to see all your beautiful work? Implementing proper on-page SEO techniques, including target market research, keyword research, meta tags, and engaging content, will help your website climb the rankings. Yes! Finally, we thoroughly test your website’s functionality and user experience to ensure a smooth browsing experience for visitors.

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The importance of website design

In today’s online world, a website serves as the face of your business. No news here. It’s the storefront to your business. It is often the first point of contact for potential customers and can make or break their impression of your brand. A well-designed website not only attracts visitors but also engages and converts them into loyal customers. It’s building a community, and that’s the very best part guys! Conversely, a poorly designed website can drive users away and harm your online reputation. Therefore, it’s a good idea to invest time and effort into creating a highly successful website for the growth and success of your business.

Understanding your target audience

Before diving into the design process, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of your target audience. We will work together to identify their needs, preferences, and pain points. I will conduct thorough market analysis to gain insights into their demographics, interests, and online behaviour. By understanding your target audience, I can then tailor your website design to meet their specific needs (and not the other way around!) and create a user experience that resonates with them in different ways.

Researching and Analyzing Competitor Websites

To stand out in a competitive online landscape, it’s important to research and analyze your competitors’ websites. Identify what they are doing well and areas where they may be lacking. This analysis will help us identify opportunities to differentiate your website and offer unique value to your target audience.

Defining Your Website Goals and Objectives

Before starting the design phase, it’s crucial to define your website goals and objectives. We’ll have a brainstorming session to define, what do you want to achieve with your website? Is it to generate leads, sell products, provide information, or all of the above? Clearly defining your goals and unique features will guide the design decisions and ensure that every element of your website serves a purpose. For example, if your goal is to generate leads, the design should prioritize capturing user information through strategically placed call-to-action buttons and forms.

Creating a Sitemap and Wireframe – The Website Design Process

Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience and website goals, the next important step is to create a sitemap and wireframe. This is the planning phase. A sitemap is a visual representation of your new website’s structure, outlining the main pages and their hierarchical relationships. This helps you organize and plan the content and navigation of your website. A wireframe, on the other hand, is a basic layout that represents the skeletal framework of your website. It focuses on the placement of various elements and ensures a logical flow of information. As a general rule, creating a sitemap and wireframe provides a solid foundation for the design process and helps you visualize the structure and layout of your website.

Choosing the Right Design Elements – Design Concept – Colour, Typography, and Imagery

The visual appeal of your website plays a crucial role in capturing and retaining visitors’ attention. When choosing design elements such as colour, typography, and imagery, it’s important to align them with your brand identity and target audience. We will select a colour scheme that reflects your brand personality and evokes the desired emotions. We will also use typography that is legible and appropriate for your content, as well as accessible for all users. Incorporate high-quality imagery that is relevant to your brand and resonates with your target audience. Consistency in design elements across your website will create a cohesive and professional look.

Developing Responsive and User-Friendly Navigation

It’s also essential to design a website that is responsive and user-friendly across different devices. A responsive design ensures that your website adapts to different screen sizes, providing a seamless browsing experience for users. Additionally, intuitive and user-friendly navigation is key to helping visitors find the information they need quickly and easily. Incorporate clear menu options, breadcrumbs, and a search bar to enhance navigation. I will test your website on various mobile devices and screen sizes to ensure that it looks and functions flawlessly. On my team we have a coding and web developer guru who will work with us to make sure everything is optimized and loads quickly on any device!

Incorporating SEO Best Practices into Your Website Design

Optimizing your website for search engines is crucial for attracting organic traffic and increasing visibility. This is one subject that I am absolutely obsessed with! It is the most important element of your site. We will incorporate SEO best practices into your website design from the very beginning, conduct keyword research to identify relevant search terms and strategically incorporate them into your website’s content, optimizing your meta tags, including title tags and meta descriptions, to improve your website’s visibility in search engine results. Together, we will create engaging and informative content that is optimized for both users and search engines. Blog posts are also excellent tools for enriching your website with powerful and relevant keywords to help your web presence.

Testing and Optimizing Your Website for Performance

Thoroughly testing your website’s functionality and user experience is essential before launching it to the public. We test all links, buttons, forms, and interactive elements to ensure they work as intended. Check the website’s loading speed to ensure fast and seamless browsing.

Launching and Maintaining Your Successful Website

Once your website is fully tested and optimized, it’s time to launch it to the world. OMG, already? I’ll share some buzz-creating tactics with you around the launch and how you can promote it on your social media channels, email newsletters, and other marketing channels.

So many of us forget this part but it’s so important! How are you communicating with your visitors? How are you generating leads? Creating connections? Email marketing refers to corresponding with and building your community via email. This digital marketing strategy involves sending emails, email campaigns or an email newsletter to a targeted group of individuals with the goal of promoting products or services, driving traffic back to your online store, building relationships, or generating brand awareness. When you build a website with me, you’ll also receive the following:

Integrated Email Marketing Platform Setup with Flodesk with free welcome sequence template
Mailing list/opt-in set up with free landing page design
Integrated Email Marketing Platform Setup with Flodesk with free welcome sequence template
Basic setup of your new Flodesk account, including transferring your list from other platforms, if applicable.
Creation of a freebie pdf your target audience can’t wait to get their hands on.
Delivery of an on-brand Full Page Form you can use on your site to grow your list.
Copywriting and set up of a 3-email welcome sequence Workflow to automate warming up your list
A 1-hour hand-off call to get you comfortable with your done-for-you email marketing strategy

I wrote a whole post dedicated to your email newsletter, so be sure to check that out here!

Custom Web Design For Creatives – Our Services and Your Final Product

Each of my tailored website projects incorporates a holistic approach to web design. The entire project will also leave you very skilled and knowledgeable on how your website should be updated, maintained and grown. Beyond receiving a customized WordPress site, you’ll also benefit from a comprehensive branding and customer kit and SEO-optimized website content, including personalized low-competition keywords designed to help your site rank on google faster! That’s my absolute favourite part!

This means your site will be crafted using SEO strategies aimed at attracting online visitors actively searching for your offerings. When your site is designed like this, you’ll notice organic traffic to your site around the clock, working for you while you concentrate on your creative passions!

Here is what you’ll receive:

A good place to start… A 1-hour onboarding call
Personalized questionnaire to make the planning process useful and efficient.
Full Self-Paced Three Part Course, taking you through all the basics of web design so you’re familiar with all the lingo, processes and management.
Custom WordPress or Shopify website design, desktop + mobile friendly
SEO-rich content including the following web pages – Home Page, About Page, Blog, Products Services, FAQ, Policies, Full Page Sign Up Form and Contact Form and room to expand from there!
Branding Kit including – Logo Design, Color Palette, Fonts, Imagery
Image optimization for fast page loading, including a site audit.
Enhanced Search Engine Optimization + Keyword List
Analytics
Domain set-up
Customized video tutorial of your website and how to operate, manage and edit all your hard work!

Not only will you leave with a site you absolutely love, but you’ll also gain the skills to manage it as your creative business evolves and expands.

Looking to hire a web designer for your business?

Book a free discovery call where we can have a chat, learn about your business and answer any questions you may have.

BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL HERE

Helpful Reads and Resources

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ABOUT THIS POST

This post is written by Donata Delano – A Professional Artist, Graphic Designer and Architect based in Canada and Mexico. She specializing in visual communication and web design, creating branding solutions and websites that are thoughtful, unique and aesthetically pleasing.

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