I’ve designed a lot of websites at this point and I’ve recognized these four things that will automatically elevate a website. These are investments but are things to consider as your business grows.
They don’t have to all be invested in at the same time either. You can invest in one at a time and update your website.
Whoever you hire can have options for hourly work updates or even teach you how to make basic changes yourself.
1. Professional Photoshoot
The first elevation piece that you can do is a professional photo shoot.
When you see a website that has several photos that look like they were taken on the same day, that’s a photo shoot. It means that the photos have a theme and they would express your personality and your brand while attracting your ideal clients.
Professional photos on a website on each page make it feel fluid.
It can build trust and look extremely professional right off the bat.
2. Clear Copywriting
The second aspect of an elevated website is clear copywriting.
Copywriting is just the words that are on your website.
You’ve probably heard someone say the word copy before in the same context.
Copywriting can be DIY’d or you can hire a copywriter to really attract your ideal clients faster and build trust with them.
Copywriting is part of your branding strategy for your business. When you work with a copywriter they will ask you a ton of questions about who you want to work with and who you are. Their goal is to express your personality while still attracting those people to build and grow your business.
Copywriting on websites needs to be clear and have a clear call to action all across the website so people can scroll through and know who you are and what you offer quickly.
3. A Clear Branding Style
The third investment you can make to elevate your website is good and consistent branding.
Your branding is a mixture of who you are and who you want to attract. Clear branding style includes pieces like consistent colors, fonts, and a photo editing style. It doesn’t mean you have to have the same font on every heading it means you need to use the same three fonts throughout your website.
It gets confusing the more colors and fonts you use and makes it less likely they will recognize your brand on social media and other places.
For a person to recognize a brand and buy from them usually they have to have 10 touch points. A touchpoint can be a social media post, an advertisement, an interaction with your website, and more.
When you change the colors and fonts on all those graphics you are more likely to miss touch points because they won’t recognize you.
Branding style also goes beyond colors and fonts and visuals, and includes wording and copy as well.
4. Free Content
The last thing I want to talk about that elevates our website is free content.
The goal on the website is to get someone to contact you to book you so you can make money.
The process for someone to get to the point where they book you take some time to build trust.
Trust can be built in a lot of different ways but can be built faster when they see your face, know what you’re passionate about, know how you can help them and teach them something.
Having free content on your website helps build trust faster. It shows that you’re an expert in your field and shows you have a lot more to offer.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean you have to have a lot of free content. You could have a few freebies and some blog posts that teach around your offerings and it can be enough.
The freebies and content can also push them to join your email list. This means that if they’re not ready to buy or hire you now then they can receive emails and remember you in the future.
You want to strategize your content creation based on the goals of your business. You don’t need to just make content to make content.
With a clear goal in mind, you can create content that leads to the goal. For example, for this blog post, my goal is to show that I’m a web designer and show how I can help small business owners.
This is an example of free content and in section 3 I shared a free resource and promoted my email list.
Those are four things that elevate a website to another level. If you have any questions at all contact me here, I’d love to help.