your website to achieve the best results.

Since I started in digital marketing, it’s been just over 25 years. One thing hasn’t changed: too many web projects begin with the design.

Over the course of 17 years, I was responsible for managing many website builds at a web design and development company in Washington DC. Most of these builds began with the question “What kind of designs do like?”

This question is usually asked by clients. It seems that this is the norm.

We designed websites with no content (we asked), without an SEO strategy (we also asked) and with very little discussion of realistic KPIs related to revenue growth. We built websites according to the preferences of internal stakeholders (think C-suite and board). preferred.

Who cares about what they like? This site isn’t for them. This website is a digital tool for marketing that must produce results.

This article will cover everything you need to do before designing a website, which I believe is a much better alternative than the usual web build process.

Planning and mapping for pre-design

I get the impression that all website projects are started with an arbitrary deadline. It would make more sense if you built a website to be successful and not for an arbitrary deadline.

This is because I believe that many projects begin in the middle of the project, which I call design surveys. This means that you are skipping important steps which will be crucial to the success of your website.

Pre-design planning is based on your business and user goals. This goes like this…

Set your business goals, KPIs and objectives

It is important to remember that defining your KPIs should not be an exercise you do once and then forget about. It is crucial to define success at the beginning of the process.

More traffic is not a KPI. A KPI can be “more free trials downloaded,” “booked demonstrations,” or even “product sales.”

List the user actions that contribute to your website’s success. You may need to change these KPIs as you progress through this process. This list serves as a good reminder that your website should be designed for success and not just to look nice.

Interviews with clients and users

Interview your preferred customers or users of the website and get their feedback about what works, what doesn’t work and what is missing from the current website.

You can record users’ actions on your website if you have the time and budget. You can even record their mouse/thumb movements, eye movements, and the way they move as they navigate through your website.

Install a heat map tool, such as Hotjar or Inspectlet, that records events and clicks on your website. This will allow you to track how the site is used. This is not necessary and it can be expensive, but these efforts offer valuable insights into the behavior of users.

You can also ask the right questions, and then listen to what they have to say. Ask them, for example:

• What would you like to see this website do for you?
• What can this site do better?
• What about this website do you find irritating?
• What is blocking your path?

As you listen to their answers, consider how they might be aligned with your goals. A client may tell you they’d love to find instructions for installing or using your products. Consider how you can tie it to upsell or purchase opportunities.

Map the competitive landscape

After listening to your customers’ feedback, you should look at how your competitors are doing things. Understand your online competitors and the SEO as well as other digital marketing strategies required to make your new website successful.

You can use tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs to get an overview of the competition. You can also find out what keywords you should target to inform your navigation and content efforts. You should always build your site for users and business goals.

The keyword data you collect should be used to support your goals-driven efforts. It may not be intuitive for users to create a website structure and write content based on keywords. This will make it difficult for your website’s KPIs to be met.

It works better with an experienced SEO at the controls. It is helpful to have an outside perspective, from someone who understands what the tools are telling them.

My agency has a saying: “Don’t Trust the Tools.” Tools are stupid. The data that they provide will need to be interpreted and used to reach your goals.

User stories and conversion pathways

Create user stories based on the information you gathered from client interviews and your research into the competitive landscape. Outline conversion paths. How can you combine these two to create positive outcomes for both your users and business?

You know what they like and want. By mapping these user paths, you can determine whether they align with your goals. How will users use the site to help you achieve your goals?

At this point, a whiteboard comes in handy. You can use a flowchart or a simple list (see below). You will start to see a structure emerge as you draw out the list.

It is important to keep the situation fluid. Right now, you’re not building the website; instead, you are determining the structure that will best meet your customer’s needs and business goals.

Plan digital marketing activities in relation to website needs

You’ll need to think about how you can integrate other digital marketing tactics and tools with your new website in order to create these journeys.

In those user stories you may have identified the need for a live chat or chatbot. You can use a standalone tool for chat or even better a chat feature from your marketing platform like HubSpot.

Consider using drip campaigns and automated workflows to communicate with your customers both on and off site. You might want to retarget them once they have left the site to entice them back.

This is what your whiteboard may look like.

Wireframing is a great way to formalize the structure. Tools such as Miro, Figma, and Balsamic are easy to use and cost-effective.

Website needs to be trimmed down brutally

You will discover that certain parts of your website are not necessary as you talk to customers and compare their stories with your business goals. These issues are either not discussed or are seen as detrimental to the website.

Be prepared to discuss these shortcomings, and make a list of everything that should be killed. Be brutal. Look at your statistics. Are there sections of your site that receive little traffic, and which contribute little to nothing in terms of revenue? Get rid of them all!

Cleaning house is one of the most common mistakes businesses make when revamping their website. Imagine moving into a brand new home. When I move, I always take bags and boxes full of items that can be donated to Goodwill.

Do not move your old website into a new home. It’s time to get rid of old junk.

Website functionality explained

After you have listened to customers, identified their needs, mapped them against yours, and removed the clutter, it is time to determine all the functionality that your website will require, beyond what you have outlined in the Tools and Tactics step, to serve your target audience best and achieve your business goals. It doesn’t need to be technical.

It is important to describe all the features that this website needs.

Then I review these stories with the development team in order to determine the best CMS for the website and any necessary plugins or tools to turn their story into a reality.

This is the best method I’ve discovered to bridge the gap that exists between developer and client needs.

This is not a beauty contest, this is business!

In this list, I did not mention design. Your website is your digital marketing engine. It’s the machine that produces results online.

After you have identified your KPIs and user journeys as well as outlined functionality, designing a website should be like painting by numbers. Your web design team will be able to work with you if you follow the above steps.

Review everything you do during the design and construction process against your plan. Does this design or website deliver on those KPIs?

It’s all about the planning. Start planning now!

The article Plan your website with confidence using this foolproof planning process first appeared on MarTech.