How to brief a web designer

Before we get into this, let me just say I am not a web designer.  However, I’ve worked with a lot of people who are – and a lot of customers who I’ve written web content for, so I’ve heard all the horror stories – and also quite a few ecstatic reviews.

Your web designer is not clairvoyant!

When you start out you have a blank page – and, unless your chosen web designer already knows you and your business well, any site they create will be based on their best guess and, maybe what type of site your competitors have.

The questions is, do you want to look like everyone else?

No, probably not – you want to stand out from the competition and that means you need to tell your web designer what you’re aiming for.

Whether you’re commissioning a new site or a revamp of your current site, you’ll get a better result if you:

• Explain to the designer what you want the site to do
•  Give them 6-10 examples of websites you like the look of – and, most importantly, WHY you like them
• Provide a hi-res version logo, colour references as hex numbers (that’s the ones that start with #) and your preferred fonts.  In relation to these, it’s probably best to have a discussion with the web designer as they will have some input into what works and what doesn’t.
• Some information about who your target audience are, what’s important to them and the problems you solve.  While they may not be providing the copy, it will influence the images they choose.

A picture tells a story

But only if it’s relevant.

That banner image at the top of the website needs to support your message.  It’s not eye-candy.  If you have images you want to use, then you’ll need to provide these as hi-res versions.  A picture that looks perfectly sharp when it’s 8 cms by 3cms, can look horribly pixilated when expanded to a full screen size for viewing on a desktop.

If you’re not providing original images that you’ve either taken or commissioned, then be 100% sure that there are no copyright requirements for the images you choose.  Most web designers have access to image libraries, so if you’re not sure about copyright, show the web designer the image you like and ask them to source something similar.

If your designer suggests scrolling marquees (image that slide in rotation), resist!  Anything that moves is distracting – and nobody sits still to wait for three or four banners to scroll through, so that information is never seen.

Copy comes first

Unless you’ve been told otherwise, do not expect the web designer to write your copy – most designers aren’t commercial copywriters, although bigger companies may have a copywriter on the team, or have a freelancer who will write content – but that will be an additional fee.

In an ideal world the copy should be written first, so you’re happy with the message, the headlines, subheadings and calls to action.  A professional copywriter can help with this and your web designer will thank you, as it will make their job much easier.

Before you decide to write it yourself, think about whether you have studied how to position the message for your reader, in their language and know how to write to persuade the reader to take action.  It’s not about simply sharing information, it’s writing to persuade.

Navigation

Your web designer will be guided by you.  So a bit of guidance!

The menu SHOULD include ‘Home’.  Not everyone knows about clever shortcuts, don’t make them work any harder than necessary.  If your web designer tells you ‘Everyone knows to click the logo’, don’t believe them – ‘everyone’ doesn’t know that!

The next item on the navigation should be the place you want people to go and where they’re likely to want to go first – that is usually products or services, or both.

Contact is the last item on your menu and About is usually the penultimate item.

Blogs, Resources, Media Centre and other pages are usually between your sales pages and your useful information pages (About, Contact).

There’s a ton more – but with this information in mind, your web designer will find you to be a client that they love working with!

Who is AIDA?

I first ‘met’ AIDA back in the 1980s when I was discovering sales training.  AIDA is as old as the hills, but equally relevant today.

In short it’s an acronym for getting a customer from contact to cash (or card).  It works across many different media, from face-to-face sales conversations to digital transactions.

Today I’m exploring landing pages.

What is a landing page?

It’s a single web-based page focused on making a sale, or getting the visitor to provide their email address in exchange for something free – and get them onto your list.

It can be a page on your website or most email marketing platforms offer this as part of the package, including the form and list hosting. 

AIDA is not the only structure that works, but let’s start with that.

AIDA (Attention–Interest–Desire–Action)

• Attention: a strong headline that grabs the reader’s attention and gets them to continue reading.
• Interest: Explaining who it's for and what is included.
• Desire: This is where you build the reader’s want for your offer and can include social proof, outcomes, and maybe a transformation story.
• Action: This is where you tell them what to do and make it easy for them to do it.  A link to payment, a form to complete, etc.

But AIDA is not your only option, when it comes to a landing page structure, it’s not one size fits all!

PAS (Problem–Agitate–Solution)

• Problem: Name the reader's pain point clearly.  This means you need to know your audience really well and know what bugs them.
• Agitate: Show the cost of not solving it in time lost, credibility missed, and the cost of missed opportunities.
• Solution: Introduce your offer as the fix

There is a piece of wisdom that says people who don’t know you respond to pain (away-from motivation) better than gain.  So it’s not good to lead with the benefits – they come later.

BAB (Before–After–Bridge)

• Before: Where the reader is now, their current situation, with all the pain that entails.
• After: Where they want to be, their aspirations and dreams.
• Bridge: Your product/programme as the way to get there.

This kind of landing page is often short and punchy, so if you think your audience is skimmers rather than readers, this might be a good structure to use.

The 4 Ps (Picture–Promise–Prove–Push)

• Picture: Paint the desired outcome vividly.
• Promise: State exactly what you'll deliver.
• Prove: This is where you show off with testimonials, case studies, your credentials.
• Push: Urgency – whether this is timed deadline, special earlybird pricing, a limited number of places or bonuses.  Then your call to action. 

Sometimes more than one of these landing page structures can be integrated, using PAS or BAB to lead and then AIDA to provide more information and detail.  This is often more effective when it’s a big ticket purchase rather than an impulse buy.

Reputation planning for SMEs

Big oaks from little acorns grow. Big corporations started life as an SME at some point. This means that you need to start as you mean to go on; it’s really tough to change the way people do things once they’ve got into a habit.

This means that – even before you start recruiting your first member of staff – you need to have established what you expect from them in relation to the company’s reputation.

In fact, back up a step. When you are recruiting new staff, don’t forget to check out their online activity. It will be a good indicator as to how they manage their personal reputation and ensure you dot the Is and cross the Ts if you have any reservations before they start work for you.

Salutary tale!

A company was recruiting and had interviewed a number of people, finally settling on one young woman, who performed well at interview and had a good supporting CV.  Then someone remembered to check out her social media.

To say it was peppered with expletives is underselling the facts.  After some consideration they decided that this wasn’t the kind of language they wanted in their workplace and offered the job to their second choice.

Interestingly, the original choice candidate never knew why she didn’t get the job.

The minute you start employing people you need to have a simple social media policy in place. The big companies usually have a comprehensive social media policy, but the kind of policy that they have isn’t appropriate for a small organisation.

We all know people who work for bigger organisations and abuse their employer by spending far more than their break time updating their social media for personal reasons. Some bigger organisations ban social media use, but that’s not good business for two reasons:

• If you treat people like children they will respond accordingly and simply use their smartphones to access their social media – and, possibly, brag about putting one over on their employer.
• If you stop people using social media at work, you’re missing an opportunity for them to use it positively to promote your business.

The challenge for all businesses, but particularly smaller ones, is to get it right from day one and then keep the momentum going.

Treat people like adults – lay out the ‘rules’ (your social media policy) and explain how you would like them to use the world of the web and then trust them to stick to that.

That doesn’t mean abdicating any responsibility. It’s part of your job to monitor your reputation so a weekly search of the web for comments about your organisation, you personally and, possibly, individuals on your team is good practice.

If you discover members of staff who don’t comply with the social media policy they’ve agreed to, then you – and they – must know exactly what action you will take if they step over the acceptable line. This may differ depending on the type of transgression. 

And, given that so many small businesses use outsourced services, it’s equally important that all contractors understand your policies about social media and that these extend to them.  In fact, have the social media policy included in the contract.