Look, there are aspects of marketing that drive us all nuts, and when it comes to putting your business out there, most of you will be hiring someone else to design your website, unless you are gifted with great HTML skills! (Truth be told, I used to design my own sites in Dreamweaver, back before I could ever realize that the 60 hours it took me to design would, ah, make it impossible for me to have time to work with clients, doh!) However, many business owners go on a mad dash to hire someone to design their site, spend weeks or months of back and forth emails and conversations, and way too much money, only to end up with a site they hate, or are not happy with. Why? Because somehow, many business owners jump from “I got a business idea!” to “I need a website!” to “I’ll hire someone right away”. This can cause problems as the website might not look how you pictured it. If you don’t have the skill to do it yourself, you should take your time finding web designers melbourne, or whatever location you are searching for web designers to ensure that your vision becomes reality. To save explaining your vision, you could consider creating your own website. Some people often use SharePoint for this. When using that publishing model, people can also benefit from sharepoint web parts that allow owners to customize the user interface. This will help business owners to get their websites exactly how they want them. However, some people might not have this sort of time, therefore, they might contact a website designer.

In order to end up with a website you love, you need to know what you want it to do. Also, equally important, you need to know how your uniqueness and personality will spill onto the pages of your site! Too many times, people hire a website designer, and are perplexed at how the website designer “doesn’t get it”. That’s because, actually, YOU don’t know what you want, so how can you expect someone else to magically pull it out of you? If you want to maximize your time, and your budget, you need to spend some time figuring out the point of your website so that you can effectively communicate that to your web designer. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Give directions. When someone visits your site, what are the top 3 things you want them to do? Consider your own website browsing habits – you probably don’t spend more than 10 – 20 seconds on a homepage before clicking someplace, or leaving if you can’t find what you need. Yep, we do not like to read – we got enough clutter in our email inbox – so make it easy for the visitor to interact with the top 3 areas you want to guide them to.
2. Make an easy button. Staples got that right! Think about the main information your visitor might want and make that easy to find. I HATE when I cannot figure out how to contact a person, and when the word “Contact Us” is in print so small I need to get a magnifying glass to find it, I get the impression you really don’t want me to reach out. Is that the message you want to send? A future client recently told me the reason he chose me out of all the other marketing folks he could have hired is because I made it easy to schedule an appointment. Yes, it can be that simple.
3. Know yourself. The websites that intrigue us are the ones that have some uniqueness and that is usually about the personality of the business owner. Spending some time understanding what makes you, YOU, and figuring out how to visually represent that on your website offers a greater chance of interesting your audience enough to stay and work with you.
4. Get the right branding. In order for your website to be the best it can possibly be, it needs to be in-keeping with what you’re actually promoting and not going too far off-topic. If you hire a designer whose purpose is to design for your specific brand then it could help you enormously. For example, if you were a realtor then you could use something like Ascend Lead Sites, which advertise specifically for real estate, making your page relevant as well as intriguing.

If you are considering a website – whether it be your first one, or a redesign – now is the perfect time to get clarity on your greatest personality assets, and your goals. Check out the Personality Based Marketing system – the perfect way to prepare for an awesome website!

Want to discuss how Personality Based Marketing can make your website shine? Set up a complimentary discussion to see if it’s for you!