WordPress Website Design:
The Guide To Grow Your Business Online
When it comes to WordPress website design, this is your one stop shop to understand what you need to have in your website design.
In this in-depth guide you’ll learn:
- How to get more leads and more conversions from your website
- The pages you need on your website to support the customer journey
- Useful web design tips and tricks to help you get more traffic
You don’t need to be a website designer or website developer to get more from your website.
So if you’re ready to know what your website needs to grow your business, let's dive in.
Contents
Chapter 1
Website optimisation for business growth
Chapter 2
How to get leads from your website
Chapter 3
The website pages you need
Chapter 1:
Website Optimisation for Business Growth
In this chapter we start with the foundation of what you need to optimise your website for more conversions.
After all, getting more leads and customers is what you want your website to do, correct?
Focussing on the structure of your website, including the navigation and how it is built, is just as important as important as what you say and how your website looks.
Feel free to click into each section to go even more in depth to what you need to know.
Focus on Increasing Conversions on Your Website
Your website should be the ultimate salesperson, never missing an opportunity to make sure new visitors become leads or – even better – loyal customers.
One of the easiest way to do this is to focus on your call to actions (also known as your CTAs). Make sure to do the following:
- Try using buttons instead of hyperlinked words if you want more clicks
- Make sure your main CTA is viewable within 3 seconds of a visitor landing on any of your pages
- Place them at the top, throughout all pages and in your footer
- Don't let anyone have to scroll too far without seeing a CTA
You can dive deeper on how to work with your CTAs here to get more website conversions.
Choose a WordPress Page Builder that Loads Fast
Optimising your website means it needs to be easy for you to make quick changes to test new things - like copywriting, images and placement of your CTAs.
The easiest way to edit and update your WordPress web pages, without knowing how to code as a professional website designer or developer, is using a click and drag Page Builder.
Thankfully there are numerous plugins and themes that can be integrated with your WordPress website which allow you to create and manage your webpage content visually, and hence more intuitively.
Have a look at the pros and cons of the best WordPress page builders.
Make Your Website Menu Easy to Navigate
It’s important to make your website as user friendly as possible, for both your visitors and for Google.
Carefully constructing your website navigation is essential. You want to make the navigation as simple as possible, and should think about logical structure – the core pages you want your visitor to access, what your customers really need, and the main steps you want them to take.
Remembering to make your navigation menu easy on mobile too is vital. You can readily add headers, footers, bars, buttons, dropdown menus, and icons in WordPress to make your website navigation an extremely straightforward process for your visitors.
Invest in a WordPress Maintenance Plan
You cannot expect your website to run like a well-oiled machine, as it needs to, without regular care and maintenance.
You might never have considered why your WordPress website requires a maintenance plan, but without one, the consequences could be detrimental.
The add-ons and plugins that your website is using are super helpful to support your growing business, but need to be continually and correctly updated to ensure you don’t end up with a sluggish, non-secure and non-functional website.
Backing up your site so you don’t lose data, and cleaning your database are also important elements of this maintenance.
If you can’t remember the last time you updated your website, or are not sure how, we have you covered with our great value website care packages. We’ll help you show your website some love, care and attention!
Chapter 2:
How to Get Leads From Your Website
Your website must be designed to get you leads!
A design can look amazing but not be set up to focus on growing your business. That is what we call a "brochure site".
If your website is not getting you leads, chances are that it was built without conversion in mind, or by a designer not educated in digital marketing strategies.
In this chapter we cover tools to help you get more appointments and calls, how to build your email list, and how to built trust so your prospects take these steps with you.
Use Automation to Get More Bookings on Your Website
While you might prefer the traditional contact form or 'call now to book' with your phone number, it’s not necessarily the most efficient method, nor the most user-friendly experience. In fact, it might even put some customers off and discourage them from getting in touch with you at all.
Customers demand and expect both timeliness and convenience. With this in mind, we highly recommend using calendar integrated, automated booking tools on your website to ease this process, for the benefit of both you and your customers.
It’s an easy way to save the time and hassle of manual communication, improve your customer experience, and add to your seamless website design.
Choose a "Lead Magnet" Your ideal Prospects Want
With many years of WordPress website development under our belts, we’ve seen our fair share of both super successful and failed lead magnets.
Our favourite and top performing lead magnets are of course those that are one hundred percent free, offer a quick outcome for the prospect, and are of high perceived value, leading them to (eventually) become a customer.
We have put together a list of our top 10 which includes ideas such as complimentary downloads, short challenges and quizzes, and examples for each, so that you are primed and ready to create the lead magnet, or a combination of a few of them, that will get fast results and help you grow your business.
Test a Pop-up to Promote Your Lead Magnet
Pop-ups can be an effective way to increase conversions and engagement on a website, but it's important to use them correctly. But, hear us out on this one! You don’t want to show a pop up as soon as someone lands on your site.
Use a timed pop-up that gives users a chance to consume your content before deciding if the message is relevant to them. To use website pop-ups the right way, display the right message at the right time, such as offering a special freebie on blog posts and a special offer on shopping cart pages.
Also, show different messages based on what the user did before, such as offering a special offer to those who have already signed up for your email list. Consider using tools like OptinMonster, ThriveBox, and your own CRM system to create and manage your pop-ups. As you gain experience, you will discover which elements of pop-ups are most successful in attracting your target audience.
Build Your Email List
If you are already set up to garner emails or leads from your website, you are heading in the right direction.
The secret to building your email list lies in offering a value driven lead magnet. In other words, something enticing and free that you can give a web visitor or potential customer in return for their email contact.
Adding opt-in forms to your webpage design with compelling and highly visible call to actions (CTAs) will be key to your success here.
Own Your Data
The time is now to build an email list from your website. Why? Whilst email marketing in the age of social media and paid advertising might seem outdated, it is still one of the most reliable and lucrative marketing channels we have available to us.
Optimal web design will ensure you continue to grow your email list with the strategic placement of your ‘lead magnets’ and opt-in forms throughout your pages. So, if you haven’t already started, what are you waiting for?!
Use Testimonials or Ratings to Build Trust
Good testimonials can be the difference between someone becoming a lead or going elsewhere. There is an art to getting a good testimonial, and then how to use them effectively on your website.
Firstly, you need to ask the right questions of your customers to highlight your unique selling points. Then you can mesh their answers into paragraph format or a quote-style testimonial.
To make sure the testimonial is seen and read on your website, pull out a headline from a key point, and include a photo and job title.
Chapter 3:
The Website Pages You Need
In this chapter we discuss the key pages you need on your website so it grows your business.
In addition to your core services or products pages, your website should be a strategic mix of landing pages. You can send traffic to these pages from your marketing campaigns to get people to take action with you.
You also need thank you pages built to guide leads or customers to take additional steps once they sign up from your landing pages.
Did you know that 52% of your website visitors want to see information about your business? This is why an About Page is so important - it should be designed to convert, not just talk about your business.
Use Landing Pages
It is often better to have your web visitors land on a standalone web page fit for a specific purpose rather than on your website homepage. These are often known as ‘landing pages’. So what are website landing pages, why do you need them and how do they work?
When you want someone to take a specific action with you, whether opt-in, buy something, booking an appointment or read more info about what you do, you send them to a landing page - such as an ppt-in page, sales page, or even blog posts. As these pages are more targeted and less overwhelming for visitors, they often contribute to an increased website conversion rate.
Send Someone to a Thank You Page Once They Take Action
Once a visitor has signed up for a lead magnet, booked an appointment, or even purchased something online where do you send them? The perfect thank you page is so much more than just a boring ‘thanks for signing up’ message.
You need to not only acknowledge the commitment your customer has just made, but also ensure they know what to do next. After all, you’ve got them this far!
Offer a natural ‘next step’ call to action (CTA), such as an exclusive, irresistible, limited time offer. Don't have anything to sell online? Then promote booking a call, or even joining you on social media. Think about how you can push that new lead further over the line.
Make Your About Page a Sales Tool
The ‘About’ page of your website is more important than you might think. It is a widely visited page that visitors use to get to know your brand and make an informed decision about whether to take the next step with your business. However, a common mistake is to make it all about you.
The most effective ‘About’ pages must be carefully written and positioned to show customers how you can help them. Keep your customer in clear focus as you personalise your brand and build that essential customer connection.
Don’t forget to add subtle call to actions (CTAs) so visitors know how they can or should proceed.
Chapter 4:
Website Design Ideas For Traffic
Some people who seek help from us do so because they have a pretty site, but it does not get any visitors.
You can of course use online advertising for instant traffic, but that can get expensive.
When building your website you also want to consider long-term organic (or free) ways of using traffic. Consider optimising your pages for SEO by doing keyword research and creating content to position those keywords in a way where Google will hopefully send you traffic.
An important part of SEO is posting new content ongoing, and the easiest way to do this is to add articles, or blog posts, to your website ongoing.
Use On-Site SEO (or On-Page SEO)
Search engines are crucial to driving visitors to your site. But search engines such as Google can be tricky beasts to navigate with complex algorithms and updates that make it harder for our businesses to be found and seen.
However, making your site more search engine friendly through the process of Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) need not be a mystery or difficult task reserved for website developers and digital specialists.
From on-page SEO, such as ensuring your website load speed is fast, to the importance of cross linking and using strategic keywords, there are some easy changes you can make to your website that will help you get more organic web traffic.
We have put together a quick guide to SEO with some simple SEO tips and improvements that you can easily implement to optimise your site and advance its searchability and ranking.
Use Different Marketing Channels to Promote Your Blog
You’ve fought half the battle and set up your blog, regularly adding great content to keep your visitors informed and updated. But now your challenge is directing more traffic to your blog and getting more eyeballs viewing your content.
Firstly, remember that all your content should be strategic and serve a purpose. A good way to check if your content is needed, wanted and/or relevant, is to do keyword research, so you can see the popularity of particular search phrases on Google. There are a number of tools, both free and paid, that you can use to do this.
You also need to actively promote and send people to your blog content – let people know about it! You could try email newsletters, sharing via social media, or even paid advertising.
Conclusion:
Make your website work for you!
We hope you enjoyed this guide about what to consider for your WordPress website design.
By now you know you don't just need an attractively designed website, you need one that grows your business too.
After building over 500 websites we have seen what works and what doesn't.
We’re always happy to help, lend an ear and answer any questions about your plans with some expert web design advice.
Talk to us about your website design ideas!
