Define the purpose of your website!

The first step to understand what you want your website to achieve? Will it be to sell products in an online shop, prompt a visitor to contact you or book an appointment or just to inform and educate.  Whatever you decide, you then need to tailor your content, SEO and social strategy to help achieve these goals. 

Who is your website for?

So how do you go about doing that? The next thing to consider is, who are your audience? Regardless of how well you think you know your customer, completing a Customer Avatar to document all their attributes is time well spent.  A customer avatar identifies the person you’re talking to. After you have created the customer avatar and documented their attributes, background and motivation, you can then create content that will appeal to them.

Once this has been completed you will be able to answer questions such as; What will they find interesting and useful? What will they want to know more about?  Next, you need to start thinking about your content strategy, or what you’ll publish. What type of content will you be publishing and when will you publish it?

Download our Customer Avatar template to understand your customer

Research your competitors

Competitor research is essential when planning your website. Look at your competitors websites and take notes of what they are doing well, what they aren’t doing well and think about how you can improve on those. Are there any gaps that you can fill that will add value to your customers that your competitors aren’t fulfilling?

Don't blindly copy your competitors, use their websites as a basic standard to improve upon.

Content Strategy

Now that you know who will be using your website and what they are looking for you can map out your content. Content is much more that just what you are saying, it can also include images, videos, embedded social media feeds, product descriptions, FAQs and blogs.



Not everything can be mapped out on day one. It is also important to stay up to date on industry trends, otherwise you risk becoming irrelevant. This will reduce the amount of traffic your website receives and the conversions (the number of people taking the next action) it produces.  So it is wise to review and adapt your content strategy on a regular basis

By planning out your content strategy in advance you will benefit from always having new content that will interest and engage your potential customers. Combining this with an SEO strategy will help to get your website ranking highly in searches delivering valuable traffic for your website.

SEO Strategy

Regularly updating content on your website is a crucial for part of your Search Engine Optimisation strategy and will help to increase your rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). 

The foundation of your SEO strategy are keywords. These are the words and phrases that your potential customers will type in to search engines when they are looking for your products and services. The keywords that you have identified should then be used throughout your website. 

In addition to the copy (text) on your website you also need to consider optimising the other aspects of your website such as page titles and descriptions, headings and alt tags (the naming of the images on your website)

Click here to find out more about SEO

Calls to Action

Calls to action are the next steps you want your customer to take on your website.  That could be to call you, book an appointment or download information etc.

Ideally you will have numerous different calls to action to appeal to the different stages that people are at in the sales process. 

If you rely on people knowing what you want to do next, you will be disappointed.  Make sure you tell them what the next step you want them to take is. 

Use a Content Management System

A Content Management System (CMS) provides an easy way to update the content on your website. It goes without saying that if it is easy to update the content on your website then you will be more motivated to keep your website relevant and up to date.

Conclusion

The best websites are not built on a whim they are meticulously planned with a defined purpose and updated on a regular basis to ensure they are current and relevant. 

Remember the process doesn’t stop once your new website is built. If you want to keep a step ahead of your competition and continue to grow your business then it is crucial that your website strategy is reviewed and revised regularly. 

To maximise the effectiveness of your website it is best to engage with a professional web designer who can guide you not only through the design and build process but also on an ongoing basis. 

At Overt Digital Media we never think of a website as being ‘finished’ we see all of our websites as ‘work in progress. Because of this we provide a managed service for our customers’ websites to help them continue to grow online.

If you would like to find out more about this service then please get in touch:

About Us

Overt Digital Media are a digital marketing agency based in Christchurch on the edge of The New Forest. We specialise in building cutting edge websites with artificial intelligence and mobile apps for small businesses and start ups. 

If you would like a free assessment of your website or help with planning your new website please call to arrange an appointment.