We all recognize the importance of having a website to promote our products or services, particularly in today’s technology-driven world, but many of us don’t realize the full potential of what a website can truly do for our businesses.
A website isn’t merely a tool to show people that your business exists and is credible. A website is a tool for your marketing, your networking, your sales, and your advertising – and that is true whether you like it or not. Ideally, a website is itself a marketer, promoter, salesperson, consultant, and secretary, all rolled into one. In fact, it’s often our top performing employee!
Doesn’t it make sense then to have the best website for the job? If your website isn’t designed with purpose toward achieving your business goals, then it won’t be very good at adding value to your business. That is where Purposeful Design® comes in.
What Is a Purposefully Designed Website™?
A Purposefully Designed Website focuses on much more than bright colours and complicated graphics. Rather than becoming a fine piece of art, your website becomes a finely tuned machine that works toward your business goals. Bright colours and complicated graphics become tools to direct gaze and attention; pages and content become touchpoints in a multitude of unique customer journeys, leading user’s further down the funnel to a sale. A Purposeful Website takes everything that you hope to achieve into account, along with consumer psychology, conversion rate optimization, and Analytics.
Why Is a Purposefully Designed Website So Important?
There is little point in creating a website simply to say that you have one. If you have no real commitment to using your website to promote your business, make connections with clients, or sell a product or service, then why bother? And since designing a site costs money, it makes no business sense either. You can spend a lot of money making sure that your site looks attractive and functions well, but if it doesn’t help you to achieve your business goals, then it isn’t of much use to you.
In order for a website to be truly successful, it must achieve its purpose and look attractive and function well. In fact, being attractive and functioning well are only important because they help your website achieve its purpose.
How Can I Ensure That My Website Is Designed Purposefully?
The most important things are to never lose sight of what you aim to achieve with your website, and to really know your target audience: who they are, what motivates them, what sources of friction or uncertainty may they be facing, how they see you or similar businesses, how they behave online, and so on. Use insights developed from this information to build a strategy for the design, structure, and content of your website that will bring you success. The order is critical. Don’t build a website and then try to shape it to meet your goals. That doesn’t work. Rather every page, every feature, and every graphic should add value to your business and further your goals in some way.
If you pay somebody else to design your website, then it’s paramount that they fully understand what you want, need, and hope to achieve with your website. We, at Digital Lion, always asks about your goals and target audience in our website design questionnaire, and if the person you are paying doesn’t do the same, be wary. You may end up spending a lot of time learning and coaching them on how to make your website effective, or waste a lot of time, money, and potential business until you have it redesigned properly.
If you’re uncertain of what the aim of your site should be – or if you even need one – then you should be asking yourself some important questions, such as:
- What ways can my business benefit from being online?
- Who are my current and potential clients, what are some ways they will want to use my website, and how could they be using my website in ways that will add value to my business?
- Can I improve customer service, loyalty, and earn repeat business through the use of my website?
- Is it possible to attract new business through my website, such as through SEO or other forms of digital marketing?
- How will I be marketing or promoting my business offline or through social media; and when those people find my website, what stage of the buying process will they be in?
- Is it possible to move leads further down the sales funnel through the use of my website?
It is extremely important that you critically analyze and assess your business and marketing needs and goals thoroughly before you even consider designing a site. Only once you’ve identified what you want to achieve are you or a web design company in a position to design a site that will truly be effective and valuable to your business.
What Will a Web Design Company Do to Make My Site Purposeful?
A professional web design company has the experience and expertise to most-effectively realize the potential of your website. Using their in-depth knowledge and experience of online behaviours, website marketing strategies, user experience design, and psychology, they will make sure that every single element of your site is designed with a specific purpose and is aligned towards a specific goal, resulting in more success for your business.
That is why, even though there are many DIY website solutions available nowadays, clients keep coming back to us for help in improving or redesigning their websites. They understand the true value of an effective website and that the cost is really an investment into the success of their business – and one of the most important ones they will make.
Want to learn about more Purposeful Design®? Read about it here.
Need some help developing a Purposeful Website? Get a free quote today.
About Digital Lion
Digital Lion is a design and marketing agency specializing in website development, online marketing, graphic design, branding/logo design, video animation, and print marketing design. Headquartered in Calgary, and with secondary locations in Edmonton and Ottawa, they work with clients across Canada, as well as worldwide, and are focused on being environmentally friendly and giving back to charities that they are passionate about. The company mission is to “Design a Better World®.”
