What is the purpose of your website? A website can be and do almost anything. However, you need to understand your purpose and design based on your particular business needs and goals. Is your website’s purpose to
- entertain?
- inform?
- sell a product?
- promote a service?
- showcase a catalog?
The possibilities for your website are limitless. However, before you start designing, it’s imperative that you outline its core function and goals. Think of your website like an Olympic athlete. You want it to win a gold medal, but in which event? Because you’re going to use an entirely different strategy as a weightlifter than you would use as a long-distance runner, and if you’re a swimmer, your training regimen won’t look anything like the one used by a javelin thrower.
Build To Your Purpose
Once you’ve decided on your website’s purpose, you can start brainstorming how you want it to look and what strategies you’ll use to achieve that purpose.
For example, if you have decided your website’s job is to showcase your gutter cleaning and landscaping business, you might consider a theme with several green accents. You might also consider a video landing page that introduces your company and highlights your services. You may want to create an easy-to-use navigation menu and have your contact info prominently displayed on every page to ensure potential customers know how to contact you.
Alternatively, say that you want your website to be a blog whose purpose is to entertain. Maybe you use it to write movie reviews in a snarky tone that resembles slightly edgier feedback. You might present your blog using categories like
- Trash Fires
- This Week’s Flops
- The Best Worst Movies You’ll Want to See
In this case, you want to intrigue your readers and get them to explore, rather than cutting up your content into easily digestible cubes and putting everything on a silver platter.
Both of these websites will look vastly different, and a design choice that will work for one will be significantly less effective on the other. That is the power of purpose. It shapes every aspect of your website and informs every choice you make regarding your content, layout, and color scheme.
Creating an effective website requires experience and expertise. Stop being frustrated with an underperforming website, and let us transform your online presence into an effective tool that defines your purpose and drives success.