Designing a New Website? Focus On The Important Things

If you're putting in the work to plan and build a website, you should optimize it to get the best results. The best way to do this is to build it around an effective sales funnel. 

Planning your site so that it fits into your sales funnel can help you in a number of ways. It can draw new targeted leads to your site where you can start engaging with them, provide content to help visitors make the right purchase decisions, or upsell to your main offer. No matter what your goal, connecting your site with your sales funnel is what makes it happen.  

How Sales Funnels Work 

A sales funnel is a marketing concept that refers to a customer's journey with your business, from initial awareness to lifetime loyalty.  

They enter at the wide end and move toward the final offer. Then, you qualify them with content and offers as they go along. This qualification process helps you separate non-buyers from buyers. You also learn about your leads to better meet their needs.  

Define Your Sales Funnel Stages 

A sales funnel has 4 clearly defined stages: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action.  

The lead starts with Awareness. This is where the potential customer first learns about your brand. Then, during the Interest phase, they learn more about your products and services. Next, during the Decision stage, they're ready to buy and are considering their options. The final step is Action when they make a purchase. 

For example, at the Awareness stage, you may have free content such as articles, blog posts, or videos posted on various websites that bring traffic back to your site. During the Interest and Decision stages, you offer more specific content and small-ticket offers, leading them to the Action stage and the big purchase.  

Where Your Site Fits into the Sales Funnel 

Consumers can use your website at the Awareness stage, where they first learn about your brand. You can do this by building a site rich with content offering help with problems your target market faces. You would then use a lead magnet to direct them to other places where you offer more content for the other phases. For example, you might get them to join your email list, webinar, or online group. 

Another idea is to use your website for the Interest stage. You would use content marketing, publishing information all over the web that leads back to your site. Visitors can learn more about your offers by exploring products and more targeted content.  

Content Considerations  

Once you decide how to use your site, you can plan its content. The key is identifying what you want visitors to do. Then create the content and calls to action that would lead them to complete that action.  

For the Awareness stage, content should be more general, while the Interest stage content would focus on more specific problems. Content for Decision stresses the benefits and uniqueness of your product and leads the person to take action.  

A Focused Approach  

Once your website is built, track its performance to know where to make changes. Then, as you interact with leads, you can learn more about your target market and find more ways to meet their needs.  

 

Want to learn more about planning and building a website that converts? 

 

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Whatever your business, your website is the place to connect with your target market and show how your products and services can help them.  With this planner, you’ll follow a step-by-step process to help you decide on all the details for a new or revamped site. 


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About The Author  
Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.