What is a Website Design Strategy & How To Create One

A website is an invaluable asset to your business. It’s the first point of contact for your potential customers and also serves as your storefront and a platform to reach, educate, inform, and engage your target audience.

You need to go beyond just a website to succeed with your website. You need to build a website that effectively drives your business goals consciously.

That’s where web strategy comes in.

This article discusses web strategy, its benefits for your small business website, and how to create one.

Benefits of a web strategy for your small business website

Implementing a solid web strategy for your small business website is essential to helping it achieve all objectives and enabling your business to make the most of its online presence.

Here are some crucial benefits of implementing a web strategy for your small business website:

1. Establishes clear objectives and focus

Creating a website without a clear understanding of what it should do and achieve is setting it up for failure. A solid web strategy ensures there are clear objectives and goals for your website that align with your overall business or marketing objectives.

With a solid web strategy, you have an idea of how to design your website, the emotions and information it should convey, and the type, quantity, and quality of leads it should generate.

2. Improves online presence

Your website is your key online representative, even if you have an active presence on all social media channels. If your site is non-existent or undiscoverable, you’re unknown or untrustworthy.

A detailed web strategy ensures your website is optimized to rank at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs). It ensures your website is visible to your target audience, ensuring increased traffic and conversions for your business.

Furthermore, a web strategy enables your website to validate your presence on other marketing platforms, such as social media, audio and video sharing channels, etc., helping you build authority and earn the trust of your target audience.

3. Reduces marketing costs

Another great importance of a well-implemented web strategy is that it significantly reduces marketing costs. This is because content marketing, pay-per-click ads, and other online marketing strategies are often more cost-effective than traditional advertising methods.

A web strategy ensures you effectively leverage content marketing, PPC ads, and other website advertising methods to generate the right visibility, engagement, and conversion for your business.

4. Increases your global reach

Going global or implementing a multilingual marketing strategy is difficult without a solid web strategy. To reach a wider global audience, your website is your easiest route; without a proper web strategy, your chances of success are low.

5. Enables you to make data-driven decisions

A well-implemented web strategy ensures you have the right tools to collect and analyze data for improved performance. The activities and interactions of your target audience and customers on your website are valuable data that, when harnessed, can help you provide a better user experience, increase conversion, and make better business decisions.

6. Enables you to build a solid brand identity

As the first point of contact for most potential customers, your website should accurately depict your brand identity. A web strategy makes this possible, as it ensures the proper implementation of all your brand elements, from your visual elements to your brand adjectives, core values, and personality.

8 steps to create a strong web strategy for your small business website

Creating a web strategy for a small business website can be overwhelming, but these steps will guide you:

1. Define your goals and objectives

The first step toward creating a web strategy for your small business website is to determine what you intend to achieve with the website. This is a crucial web strategy development step that, if omitted, will lead to a website lacking focus.

You can have many goals and objectives for your website, including building brand awareness, increasing engagement, generating leads, and increasing sales.

If you can’t define your goals, consult a website strategist to help assist you and create a strategic website design plan that generates results.

2. Identify your target audience

Once you’ve identified what you want to achieve with your website, the next step is identifying those interested in your business and your website.

These are most likely your ideal customers, as your content will provide information that helps them solve their problems.

Research the demographics, needs, and preferences of your target audience. You can create a detailed buyer persona to help you in this regard.

3. Study your competitors

Studying your competitors’ websites will make your web strategy development easier.

You’ll get information on the different components of a good website and how to integrate them into your website.

Analyze your competitor’s websites to understand what elements work well and what you can do differently to stand out.

Begin by identifying key competitors and assessing their design elements, such as layout, color schemes, and typography, alongside evaluating the user experience they offer, including navigation and mobile responsiveness.

Analyze their content strategy by reviewing the types of content they publish and the SEO tactics they employ, such as keywords and meta descriptions.

Also, look at features that enhance user interaction, like search functions, chatbots, and e-commerce capabilities.

4. Determine your design strategy

A design strategy focuses on creating a visually appealing and functionally effective website. One that is esponsive, easy to navigate, visually appealing, and user-focused.

A well-implemented web design strategy makes a website more engaging, lowers the dropout rate, builds trust and credibility, and boosts conversion rates.

This involves:

• User Experience (UX): Ensuring the website is easy to navigate and interact with. This includes optimizing page layouts, simplifying navigation menus, and ensuring that user interactions are intuitive. The goal is to make the user’s journey through your site as smooth and enjoyable as possible.
• Responsiveness: Designing your website to work seamlessly on various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This involves using responsive design techniques to ensure content displays correctly across all screen sizes.
• Accessibility: Making your website accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This means following web accessibility standards and guidelines to ensure that everyone can use your website effectively.
• Website branding: Integrating your brand consistently throughout the website. This involves using your logo, brand colors, and voice across all pages. The website should serve as a digital extension of your brand, making it clear and memorable for your audience.

Once your content and marketing strategy are in place, plan for your website’s actual design.

Ask important questions and consult website specialists to create an effective website for your small business.

5. Set the technical aspects

Technical considerations ensure that your website is secure, fast, and able to handle the expected traffic. This includes:

• Hosting solutions: Choosing a reliable hosting provider with the bandwidth, uptime, and customer support.
• Website platforms: Consider the platform on which your website is built. I recommend WordPress because of its flexibility and customization.
• Website builders: WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify all provide user-friendly tools to create websites. My favorite is Elementor, which offers drag-and-drop features and pre-designed templates that make it easy to set up a professional-looking website quickly.
• Security measures: Implementing security protocols to protect your website and user data from cyber threats, including SSL certificates, regular software updates, and secure coding practices.
• Scalability: Ensuring that your website infrastructure is scalable to handle growth in traffic and content without performance degradation.

6. Determine your marketing strategy

Develop a marketing strategy to promote your website to gain visibility, attract potential customers, and convert them effectively.

This involves:

• Digital marketing: Utilizing various digital marketing tactics such as social media marketing, email marketing, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, and content marketing to drive traffic.
• Brand messaging: Ensuring all marketing materials reflect your brand’s voice and brand message consistently across all platforms.
• Conversion optimization: Implementing strategies to convert visitors into customers, such as call-to-action buttons, landing pages, and lead capture forms.
• Business SEO: Improve search engine performance by updating content and adding backlinks
• Guest Blogging: Write for other blogs to build your reputation and attract traffic.

Ensure you have a clear plan for leveraging these marketing channels to promote your website, considering your budget, marketing goals, and target audience demographics.

7. Determine your content plan

A solid content plan should help you build topical authority and position your brand as an authority.

A digital content plan outlines how you will create, publish, and promote useful and usable content. It also ensures you focus on content that resonates with your audience more, from blog posts to infographics, audio, and videos.

Determine the type of content to publish, when to publish them, how to promote them, and how to keep them fresh and updated.

Key aspects of a content plan include:

• Content types: Determining the types of content that will be most effective for your audience, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, or podcasts.
• Content calendar: Developing a schedule that dictates when and how often new content is published. This helps in maintaining a consistent presence and engagement with your audience.
• SEO integration: Incorporating search engine optimization strategies into your content to improve visibility on search engines. This includes keyword research, meta descriptions, and SEO-friendly URLs.
• Content management: Implementing systems and processes for creating, reviewing, and approving content, as well as archiving outdated content.

Use a website content checklist to implement your content plan. Here’s a website content template that could help to create your website content.

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8. Set up website analytics

Analytics is vital for the success of your small business website and your business in general. Implement an analytics strategy to track and analyze your website’s performance.

You have to collect, analyze, and interpret user data to gain insights into their behaviors, needs, and preferences. You should also analyze the overall performance of your website, including how visitors respond to your design elements.

• Traffic analysis: Use tools like Google Analytics to check how many people visit your website, what they do there, and how they interact with your content.
• Conversion tracking: Set up ways to monitor how often visitors complete actions like signing up or buying something. This helps you see how well your marketing efforts and website features work.
• Performance metrics: Keep an eye on key numbers like how many people leave your site quickly (bounce rate), how many make a purchase or sign up (conversion rate), and how long they stay on your site (session duration). These metrics help you spot what needs to be improved.
• Feedback mechanisms: Use tools to collect comments and opinions from your users. This feedback can provide valuable insights into what users like and what needs to be better.
• Set up position tracking: Set up keywords you want to track in an SEO tool, to monitor their performance over time.

Tips for creating an exceptional web strategy for your website

Creating an exceptional web strategy for your small business website doesn’t need to be overly complex. Here are straightforward tips to help you build an effective web presence:

1. Conduct thorough market research

• Understand Your Audience: Dive deep into who your customers are, what they like, and what they need. This will guide you in creating content and functionalities that cater directly to their preferences.
• Study Competitors: Look at what your competitors are doing right and where they are lacking. This can offer insights into opportunities you can capitalize on.

2. Manage your content

Content is the most valuable asset for your website. Without creating valuable content that resonates with your target audience, you’ll find attracting and retaining visitors to your website challenging.

• Content Audit: Evaluate what content you already have, what’s performing well, and what isn’t. This helps in planning content that truly engages your audience.
• Content Preparation: Ensure you have a variety of content ready before launching updates to your website, keeping a steady flow of material to maintain visitor interest.

3. Review & adjust

Your web strategy should include plans to review your performance periodically and make adjustments or corrections based on the information gathered.

Constantly review your web strategy to know what’s working and what is not, then adjust accordingly.

4. Allocate resources effectively

An effective web strategy ensures the appropriate allocation of your resources to the different aspects of your website development process.

Determines the amount to put into the initial design of the website, the subsequent maintenance and updates, and the amount that can be used for rebranding or brand evolution processes.

Also, determine how much budget to set aside for content creation and promotion.

Will you have in-house content creators, including writers, editors, videographers, graphic designers, etc., or will it be cheaper to outsource the task to freelancers? Ensure you examine the pros and cons and determine the best option for your business.

5. Plan for scalability

With the massive technological improvement and increasing customer demand to meet specific digital experience requirements, your web strategy must factor in scalability plans.

Also, ensure plans are in place to consistently update your website infrastructure to accommodate any level of demand or traffic.

Web strategy template for small business websites

Example of a web strategy for a small business website

Here’s a good web strategy example for a fashion business website:

Business objectives

• Attract 20,000 monthly visitors within the next 12 months
• Gain 2,000 leads from the monthly visitors
• Convert 30% of the leads into customers

Target audience

• Female corporate workers between the ages of 18 and 50 who love to try out stylish corporate wear

Competitor analysis

• Study extensively the web strategy of Zara, COS, H&M, Simply Be, etc., to understand what they’re doing right and where they’re not doing well.

Content strategy

• Publish five corporate wear photos and videos daily and attach a story that sells the fashion wear.
• Create corporate wear designs and ask our readers to vote for the best and suggest how to improve others.
• Create a monthly fashion wear catalog and post on the website

Marketing strategy

• Publish snippets of the blog posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
• Run paid ads to promote our website on Facebook and Instagram
• Invest in search engine optimization
• Write a fashion expose and publish it in magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, etc.

Design strategy

• Create a responsive website with a fast load speed
• Ensure the website adheres to web accessibility requirements
• Ensure the website features our brand identity elements
• Quarterly website maintenance and bi-yearly updates

Analytics strategy

• Use Google Analytics to track website visits, engagements, and conversions.
• Monitor key performance indicators such as sales, email newsletter signups, blog engagement, unique website visitors, average time on a page, bounce rates, etc.
• Review data every month and review strategies accordingly

Create a web strategy that drives business results

A well-implemented web strategy ensures your website attracts, retains, and converts visitors into customers, enabling you to achieve broader business goals and objectives.

It helps you build a solid online presence for your brand and provide valuable and timely information to solve the problems of your target audience.