Developing a Website Design Strategy for 2022

This past year has only reinforced the importance of having a strong digital presence for any business. This doesn’t mean your local mom and pop hiking store needs to move solely online and shut its doors forever. It just means that you need to make it easy for customers to connect with you virtually. 

Creating a solid digital operating plan for your business is something that requires multiple steps, but the absolute most important component of that process is your website. In the year ahead, we have multiple blogs, offers, and more planned that will help your business grow and thrive online. (Make sure you subscribe and never miss a post.) Today, we’re going to focus on what you need to do to develop a website strategy to help your business run just as smoothly digitally as it does physically. 

Focus on Your User

While many things in the world of web design and digital marketing seem to change overnight, this is one that stands the test of time. Before you put anything online, it needs to be vetted through the lens of your ideal customer (or what we like to call your buyer persona). 

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a pretty good chance that you already care about your visitors’ experience on your website, but this is especially crucial as you focus more intently on your digital presence. When you know your ideal customer inside and out, you have a great sense of the information visitors want to find as soon as they come to your site, and can create a website strategy that makes this information accessible. You’ll also be able to immediately answer common questions for first time visitors or prospective customers – leaving them with more time to spend on other areas of your website. 

The result: a site that is helpful, intuitive, easy to use, and able to hold visitors’ attention. 

Build Out a Keyword Strategy

Your user needs to be your primary focus, followed closely by a focus upon the keywords and phrases your ideal customer uses when searching for your business. A tool like SEMRush or Google Keyword Planner can help you identify a specific set of keywords and phrases to include throughout your website, as well as where to place them so that you have the greatest search results.

(Note: this is a pretty intense topic, one that can’t be covered well in a paragraph or two. For more in-depth, helpful information, check out our blogs about on-page SEO factors and the relationship between SEO and web design.)

Create a Site that is Adaptable

Once you’ve identified what it takes to make your site as user-friendly as possible and well poised to rank highly for keywords, you’ve got to focus on what you need to make your website design adaptable. 

Success means you can adjust and change your website quickly, easily, and effectively. Your website pages and copy should be up to date and include your hours of operation, as well as make it clear how you’re handling a specific situation (such as COVID-19). For example, if your hiking store has to shut its doors for a period of time, make it clear and simple for visitors to see how they can still buy from you during this time: 

• Is inventory available on your website?
• Could users text someone on your team, place an order, and then pick it up curbside?
• Do you offer delivery for people out of state who have used your store before and want to support it again?
• Your website strategy needs to include a plan for how your site can evolve and change as needed.

Be Personal

Focusing on your digital presence doesn’t mean you forget that you’re still interacting with people. If there’s anything that has been clear from the past two years, it’s that you will never regret being kind and genuine with your audience. Consider having a video on your homepage welcoming visitors and helping them know what to expect from your website and your company. Include real photos of you and everyone on your team so that prospects and customers can put a face with a name. Take the time to make it clear what you do, how you do it, and why it matters. Be professional, but don’t hesitate to be warm and conversational as well.

Create Digital Options (for Everything)

Whether it’s a signup form for your soup kitchen, a free class you offer to subscribers, or shopping options for your hiking store, make sure you have a digital solution for every aspect of your work. This ensures that even if you can't greet customers face to face, you can still conduct business with them at any time.

Some examples of things that need to have digital possibilities:

• Signup sheets, payment forms, etc.
• Classes or gatherings
• Calendars of events
• Reservations/appointments
• Consultations/demos
• Shopping/curbside pickup
• Any documents needed for sales

Invest in Your Website, and Your Business

We understand that it is a little overwhelming to think about creating an online option for many aspects of your business. It feels like there is so much to do at once. That’s where a method like growth-driven design (GDD) can serve you and your business incredibly well. The idea behind GDD is that your website is a constant work in progress. Each month, we work with our customers to identify which aspects of their website they want to update: new pages, tweaks to current pages, or the addition of a video, landing page, etc. The end result is a website that is always poised to meet the needs of your customer and your business, and you and your team never feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with updates. 

Want to find out about what growth-driven design can do for your business? Click the button below to learn more!