Is Your Website Welcoming?

A welcoming website is key to successful online marketing, yet sometimes what makes a site welcoming seems elusive. We know when a site isn’t working, it’s boring, or too busy, or you cannot find what you’re looking for, or it’s just plain confusing. But how do you make a site wildly attractive to your visitors and inspire them to take the right actions?
There are a lot of elements to a successful website, and different considerations depending on your business, but I have narrowed it down to four steps that are vital to any kind of business.

1) Clarify Your Message and Address Your Visitors’ Needs: The first step to creating a welcoming website is to clarify your unique attributes, what’s most important to you (ie your soul purpose) and how you help your clientele, and share this in your site copy. Start with your Welcome Message for your Home Page and make sure that it:

1. Addresses Your Visitors Problems and Needs
2. Illuminates Your Purpose and How You Can Help Them
3. Outlines What’s on the Site and How to Find It
4. Directs Visitors to Take a Specific Action (sign up for free download, call you for a complimentary consultation, invite them to a free class.

Now take the same approach to each of your following pages, making sure to speak from the heart about your history, your offerings, your resources and how to contact you. You don’t need to write a lot, just be clear in your message, how you can help them, and what you want them to do.

2) Make Your Site an Online Oasis: One of the most overlooked aspect to a welcoming website is the look and feel. Many marketing gurus tell you not to worry about pretty graphics, just use red headlines, arrows and opt in boxes to drive action. However, these techniques are over used and do not take in to consideration how the page makes your visitors feel. Another tendency these days is to use a pre-designed theme that many other businesses have used as well. Though the site may be beautiful, it is not unique. To ensure that your site is visually appealing, unique, and reflective of your purpose, make sure to:

a. Consider your message and purpose and what symbols represent you. Take a look around your office and living areas to see if there are common images that you tend to collect. Take note of what imagery makes your heart sing, what colors light you up, what fonts feel like you.

b. Go online and find images, or go through a stack of magazines while considering your purpose and personality and download or tear out images that appeal to you. You can use a paint program to arrange images on a vision board, of if you have magazines, a scissors and glue will do. Make your own special visual arrangement that can either be scanned and used on your site, or given to a designer as inspiration for an original design.

c. Incorporate your symbology, color scheme, and font choices in your website graphics. If you are using a pre-designed theme, select unique photos or if you are feeling creative, create montages with several images you love to create a unique site banner. Otherwise hire a designer to create custom site graphics for you, and make sure she sees your chosen pics.

d. When you love the look and feel of your site, it will look and feel great to your perfect customers, and they will get you on a more visceral level.

3) Integrate a Blog Into Your Site: Maintaining a welcoming site means keeping the content fresh and pertinent to your customers. When you have an integrated blog on your site, it boosts the value of your site to visitors, and Google loves fresh content. Your site will come up better on searches when you blog frequently. Many of my clients opt for a custom designed Wordpress site with integrated blog for consistency of look and ease of use. Once programmed, these Blog Sites are easy to maintain yourself.

4) Promote Your Site to the World: Once your site is a true reflection of your purpose, you will want to direct people to your site from various popular sites online, such as

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Wordpress
• LinkedIn
• Squidoo
• HubPages

When you network online authentically and share your purpose, people become interested in you. When you link back to your site from your social networks and blogs, it helps to boost visitorship, interest, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

I look forward to seeing your welcoming sites. Feel free to post your sites below and let us know if you are having any challenges in creating an online oasis for your business.

Are you ready for a website that is a true reflection of your vision, your purpose, your personality and your attraction plan? Shining your light to the world is your destiny. Let me help your light be a beautiful, authentic and wildly attractive one.


Apply for your complimentary Magical Strategy Session at http://www.magicalstrategysession.com/ or call Julia at (707) 823-3316 to schedule your appointment.