Website makeover

Jennifer is an experienced accountant and tax expert who left the corporate world with a mission to change the financial power dynamic for women – for herself, her daughters and the female entrepreneurs she works with.

When I started working with Jennifer, she already had a website that she had built herself on Squarespace and she was selling a few basic services. She knew she wanted to take the next step in her business and was already looking at how she could develop her offering when we met at a business mastermind event. Here’s an overview of the project that resulted.

Our objectives were:

• Above all, to make the website easy to navigate for people landing on it — to make sure they could find what they were looking for and book or request her services easily
• To update the website so that it would fully reflect Jennifer’s brand and new services
• To market Jennifer’s services in a way that brings out their true value and sells them to her target audience

I asked Jennifer to fill in a custom questionnaire that helps guide me in understanding her brand and her services. This would not only determine the copy and the look and feel of the website, but also how I could present her services so that the target audience for each of them could easily find what they were looking for. To get a conversation going, I provided her with a full analysis of her website as it was. We also used feedback that she had received from a hot seat session in a business group she belongs to.

I started by presenting Jennifer with some basic wireframes (simplified drawings or diagrams of the new website pages) so that she could see how I was planning to structure her content.

From there I could add copy and, after finalising the content with Jennifer, implement directly on Squarespace.

The homepage now has clear USPs (unique selling points) and allows Jennifer’s brand to show through. Her Business Mind Mapping is highlighted, with access to more details or direct booking, both in one click. An overview of her other services is also accessible in one click.

Potential clients who want a voice on the other end before buying a service can get that reassurance by booking a free 15-minute phone call with Jennifer, according to her availability, while those that are still wondering if she can cater to their set-up find the answers just below.

Jennifer’s services are now all regrouped on one page, where users can find the service they’re looking for, click through to its description and book if they want to. Since Jennifer is planning to add short videos for her services, the format is simple enough to accommodate these at a later date without needing additional changes.

Previously there was no way to book each package directly, so there is now a booking button beneath each option. Instead of focussing on comparing the technical details of each package, the descriptions now immediately allow the user to identify if they are the target audience for a package, and how the package can help them.

Jennifer also speaks at various business events targeted at women, and wanted to promote this part of her work, so I created a separate events page for her. Here the user discovers the story behind her workshops and can see what is coming up, while those who want to book her for a speaking event can see examples of her past events and contact her.

Although a clean new structure and new copy are the most visible part of the work I have done here, a big part of user experience happens in the background. This consists of the details such as making sure that links work, lead the user where they expect them to, and open to a new tab when needed. Fonts need to be legible (often footers are left forgotten and colours are illegible, or links are left unhighlighted) and buttons should do what they say they will. The back end of the website needs to be organised so that anyone going into it can easily find things; often when people make their own websites, they grow organically. With a little spring cleaning and simple restructuring, it’s now much easier for Jennifer to make small updates to the website by herself when needed.

At the end of the day, websites today don’t just fulfil the function of a business card, but often also that of a reception desk, a check-out and a portfolio all in one. So it’s important that it does what it says on the tin, all the while reflecting the brand of the business behind it.