How To Make A Better Website

With tools like Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix (ugh), it’s never been easier to make a website, yet still people struggle to make theirs “work”. They can’t get the traffic, the followers, or the job inquiries the site was made for in the first place. And worst of all they don’t understand why. I know first-hand how that feels from making my first web portfolio in college. I thought all I had to do was put my “awesome” design projects online, and I could kick back as the job offers rolled in. I researched online what I was doing wrong and realized my thinking was entirely backwards. I didn’t consider how people would find me, or what type of people would even be looking for what I was making.

I’ve built many websites since that first portfolio, and in that time I’ve evolved my design process to include planning for the things I know help my chances of making something my audience actually wants. If you’re in the process of making a website for the first time, or are looking to refine the website you already have, here are some tips I use to build better sites. Knowing your goals ahead of time helps you decide which features to keep and which to forget. Whether you want to gather emails, sell products, or drum up conversation, your website needs to make clear how your audience can use it and what actions they can take. Knowing this information up front will make the design process easier and more efficient as you have a clear target all elements of your website aim to hit.

To know which goals are important for your specific project, it helps to understand who your website is serving, what information you’re trying to communicate with them, and why that information is important to know in the first place. Who is the audience, What problems do they have, How will the website help solve those problems, How will the solution be unique from other solutions out there, What actions are do we want the audience to take, How will we measure the website’s success, How will we get visitors to site in the first place, Researching doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, but the more you know about your audience, the better you can refine your content into something they actually want. Research how other people have tried to help your customers before, and understand what works and doesn’t work about each approach.

Essentially you’re using your competitors’ mistakes to build things already approved by your audience. Researching data to support you content is an obvious, but great way to help build trust with new visitors to your site. Linking to articles and facts from other sources helps build credibility, even when covering something subjective. The fact that other people share or inform your opinion helps to make your thoughts more supported and less “risky” to believe. Research can also lead you to discover communities and resources already working to solve your problems. This creates an interesting opportunity to engage with a ready-built audience that shares the same motivations and interests. By discovering the channels where your audience already hangs out, you can better understand what they care about, how they’re solving their problems currently, and the specific language they use to describe what you do.