I initially wrote a version of this blog post on 6 reasons why you should plan your website for our Ready Steady Websites® blog last year. The message is still the message we give out today, but I have added another key reason at the end of the post which is possibly the most important and one that most business owners don’t do. So, keep reading to find out the 6 reasons why you should plan your website before you create it.

A lot of people who decide they need a website follow this pattern. They jump straight into a DIY website builder, pick a theme or template, get a bit flustered and annoyed with it and then leave it for a while. Then they decide to try again and come back to it. They write who they are and what they do on a couple of pages, pop in a photo of them and a photo of what they sell, chuck their contact details at the top and then wonder why it does nothing for them. Don’t let that be you! Take time to properly plan your website and you will find it sets you apart from your competition and means your time has been well used and not wasted.

Reason 1: To Stop You Feeling Overwhelmed

Creating a website for your business is a big job. It is also an important job. You want to make sure you get it right so that you stand out against the competition and attract your ideal customer. If you don’t your business is probably going to struggle.

Already that’s quite an overwhelming prospect but add to that the fact you don’t know what you need to include on your website or how to go about building it once you have worked that out, you might feel like giving up and sticking to Facebook. You definitely don’t want to do that! Gillian Duncan explains why you don’t want to just rely on social media beautifully in a guest post she wrote for us.

If you start at the beginning and break it down into sections, guided by a website planning tool then I promise you the process isn’t as daunting as it seems. It’s actually achievable in quite a short space of time and will definitely feel worth it once you have created a website that is converting clients.

Reason 2: To Make Sure You Are Talking to Your Ideal Client

Taking the example at the start of the post, if you just write who you are and what you do on your website you aren’t talking to your ideal client. To make sure you are appealing to them, first you need to think about who they are, what problems they have that you can solve and what it is that they want to achieve with your help. Identifying your ideal client should be the first step in your website planning process.

Once you have identified your ideal client then this will inform the copy you write for your website, the images you use and the general feel of the design. All of these should show your ideal client that you understand their problems and frustrations, you have the skills and experience to be able to solve those and that working with you or buying your products will improve things for them. A great book to help with this is Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. Everyone we recommend it to says things become so much clearer around their business and marketing when they read it.

Reason 3: To Make Sure Your Website is Easy to Navigate

Once you have got your ideal customer to your website it needs to be easy for them to find what they are looking for. If you keep thinking of pages to include and add things here and there without much thought it will soon look and feel cluttered and it probably won’t be obvious where people can find things. When this is the case, website visitors soon get frustrated and switch off from engaging with you. They will leave your website and go and look elsewhere.

If you have planned your website well, considered all the pages at the start and planned what will be on each page then the user experience will be much greater. This way it should be clear what can be found on each page, it shouldn’t take many clicks for your website visitor to get to what they are looking for and it will be easier for you to guide them to take the action that you want them to take, whether that’s to buy from you, book a call, join your mailing list etc.

Reason 4: To Make Sure Your Website Works on Mobile

Far too often I visit a website that doesn’t work properly on a mobile device. It might be that headings vanish off the side of a screen so only half of them can be read. If this is the case people can’t see the key messages the website is trying to convey. Sometimes contact forms don’t work properly and can’t be filled in. This means the website owner is missing out on connecting with people who are actually interested in what they do and are losing business.

The most irritating mobile browsing issue of all in my eyes, is when a pop up comes up on the screen, it’s too big and the cross to close it again is off the screen and then you are stuck looking at that pop up and you can’t get to anywhere else on the website. If this is happening on your website, then people will have to leave.

You may be wondering whether this is really a problem. As long as it works on a computer, surely you’re probably capturing most of the people who come to your website.

Unfortunately that’s not right. Research shows that over 50% of web browsing is done on a mobile device now and in some sectors up to 90% of website views are on mobiles. If your website doesn’t work well on a mobile device you are losing at least 50% of your potential clients.

It tends to be the case that if your website is well planned, created thoughtfully and tested before launching that any problems with how it works on mobile will be noticed and rectified. It’s when business owners take the approach I mentioned above, of adding in things here and there and not testing the whole website again afterwards, that problems happen. When testing goes out of the window these things get missed.

Reason 5: To Make Sure Your Website Looks Professional

The aim of your website is to set you apart from your competition and to attract your ideal customer. If you plan your website well and avoid all of the mistakes that I’ve outlined above then it should be easy to achieve this but if you don’t have a good eye for design then perhaps the DIY route isn’t for you. You want your website to reflect your amazing business not look like a school project. Which leads me on nicely to reason six…

Reason 6: To Help You Chose How You Will Create Your Website

The way to choose the platform to create your website on isn’t to put a post in a Facebook group and use the website builder that most people recommend because their website won’t be the same as your website.

Use your planning to choose your platform. You will have worked out which pages you want on your website and what is going to be on each page while planning it. Whether you need an online shop or a calendar booking system. And you may have some key design features you would like on your home page.

Some platforms will do each of those things better than others, so do your research based on what your website needs.

Also, think about your own abilities. Are you confident at trying to create your website yourself or are you the type of person who would like some support, especially with the tech side of things? Perhaps you need some guidance on some areas of how your website should work.

Perhaps you’re actually really not good at this kind of thing and you know it will be time and cost effective to just had it over to someone else completely.

All of that should inform your platform choice and method for creating your website, not what other people say works for them. Obviously use their recommendations as a starting point for your research but don’t just buy based on recommendations.

For more detailed guidance and support on how to plan your website take a look at The Website Blueprint. We created this to support you to plan your perfect website, take away any confusion and stop you from feeling overwhelmed, so that you can create a website that will help you grow your business and make you stand out online!

Bio:

Jude Wharton is the co-founder of Ready Steady Websites® an off the shelf website and membership site template service which enables small business owners to take control of their online presence and shine online.

Link 1 – https://readysteadywebsites.com/

Link 2 – https://readysteadywebsites.com/guest-post-why-i-launched-a-website-early-in-my-business-journey/

Link 3 – https://readysteadywebsites.com/blueprint/

Link 4 – https://buildingastorybrand.com/

 

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