Purposeful Websites, Part 3: Let’s Get Concrete

How about that? Only 6 weeks since my last post! I’m getting better…

Previously on…

In the last two blog posts, Part 1 and Part 2, we talked about why your website should be built with a very specific purpose in mind other than to just providing information on your company. Whether it’s selling products, getting leads, enhancing operations, improving customer service, or other specific purposes, building a website that sets out to do something very specific improves the results of the website and treats it for what it is: another resource.

In this post, we’re going to dig into ways that we can be purposeful with our website.

It’s So Obvi!

Obviously, if you make a product that you can sell online, then building your website to sell the products is being very purposeful with your website design. You put the products on the homepage, you build products page, you integrate Stripe and add a buy now button, and BOOM: purposeful website. It’s not exactly as cut and dry as that and not everyone’s business is that easy to present but the most obvious way to make your website purpose driven is to sell online.

However, within the parameters of an eCommerce website, there’s a lot of nuance in how you present an eCommerce platform, how you lead users to a product page, and how you coax them to make a purchase. There’s a reason why Amazon’s website is always evolving as they try to figure out what information users need to make a purchase and the best mechanisms to get them there.

Sales! Sales! Sales!

With a focus on selling, let’s talk about some ways that you might be more purposeful in your website in terms of increasing sales.

• Build an eCommerce catalog with products, categories, and filters based upon attributes like size, price, color, use, etc that allow customers to browse what you offer. Design engaging product pages with the correct information in order for users to take the next step and make a purse.
• Build an interactive platform that asks users questions about what type of solution they are looking for and returns a list of solutions that meet their needs. This would need to be a platform that users can reply to and deliver filtered results relevant to their needs.
• Instead, focus on the level of service that sales staff provides and deliver a concierge platform where users can relate their needs so that sales staff can reach out to them and begin the sale process with them. My suggestion for something like this (and mind you, this type of thing could be awesome if you’re a company that uses a concierge sales model) would be to showcase the sales staff on the website, letting people choose who they are going to do business with instead of the product that they are interested in.

But What About Service?

What if your business is more service-related? That’s fine because the product is your business and not something else that you are trying to sell.

• Tell the story of your company, what you do, why you do what you do, and lead users on a journey through links and buttons (like a story) to different platforms to book a service call from forms, texting, email, etc. The focus needs to be on the company, who you are, and the value that you’ve already brought to customers like them.
• Create customer stories that are larger testimonials (what you might call case studies) that talk about the customer, their needs, how you met those needs, and the relationship that you have with that customer going forward. Interview customers to get things in their words because that’s what you’re future customers are already searching for. Hire a photographer to take high-quality images of you working with that customer. Give users the next step in starting a new relationship with you.
• Create an interactive question-and-answer platform (like a form for example) that allows users to navigate the website based on their problems and get to a solution that your company can provide. This provides many opportunities for personal touches and you could even start by asking for the user’s name and email address to create a lead ahead of time.

Tip of the Iceberg

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of ways that we can be more purposeful with the website. Everything starts with deciding how the business wants to grow and working with a web designer/developer to build a blueprint of how the proposed website will support those decisions. Finding the right person to help you achieve that is just as important as finding a person you would hire in-house to support your business decisions. But we’ll talk more about that later.

Up Next in this Series

Up next were going to dig into who to hire to help you redesign your website. Lastly, we’ll look at tools and partners you might employ to further deliver on your new-found purpose.

In the meantime, take a few minutes to think of some of the examples that I gave. Do any apply to you?

If any of this intrigues you and you want to hear more about how this connects to your business, you can drop me a line through my contact form or you can set up a time to talk to me: https://cwtwebsites.zohobookings.com/#/customer/4321453000000026017