What can my website do for me?

Do you like your website? That’s great if you do! Now, down to the nitty gritty.

How much traffic does your website get? How many leads does it introduce to your sales funnel and, more importantly, how many does it convert into sales further along the buyer’s journey? How often is it updated? How many times a week are you able to post a new blog? How many people read it and, if the option is presented to them, leave you their contact details so they can learn more in the future and keep in touch?

But hey, as long as the website looks nice, right? Well, no. This is one of the largest misconceptions held by businesses today. They need a website that looks attractive, but also attracts new customers and leads on a regular basis, converts sales and keeps people coming back for more.

At the very least, your website should be a marketing tool. When it works properly, which is what growth driven design (GDD) aims to provide, it should generate more high-quality leads and convert sales on a consistent basis, improve brand perception and increase its reach.

Why is traditional web design broken?

Think back to when you had your website built and you may begin to see what we mean about the traditional web design process being broken. Where you ever asked any of the above questions, for instance? If they were discussed did you have to prompt the conversation and were your concerns addressed properly?

We believe that the traditional web design process is broken for numerous reasons. One of the most important is objectivity; what looks like a great website may knock your socks off visually, but it may also have some serious usability issues. So many businesses get sold a website on looks alone, when what they need is an all-action online front-of-house that’s a cornerstone to their overall growth ambitions and marketing strategy.

There are other ways in which the traditional web design process is broken:

• It can be an expensive process: Traditional web design projects can run into tens of thousands of pounds. Depending on your schedule you could pay in instalments, but however you choose to pay, the fee will almost always need to be paid in full before your site goes live.

• It’s time-consuming: Designing a website is a hugely technical and complex process, especially the more bespoke you want your site to be. It can take months to complete, and also demands time and resources from members of your team as it evolves and takes shape.

• The design process evolves: The online marketing sphere and consumer habits are continually changing, meaning there’s no guarantee that what was agreed before the project may be at the cutting-edge of web design once it’s completed. Naturally too, as projects aren’t typically set in stone, timeframes and budgets could change .

• The final product may be lacking: Again, objectivity. There aren’t any test runs when it comes to the traditional web design process; what you see at the end is usually what you get. How people use and react to it will be the final product you’ve paid for. Changes, updates and overhauls will be a separate project entirely, leading to more investment and delays.

In short, you may be left with a flashy but impractical website. We believe there’s another way to do it though - through growth driven design.    

What is Growth Driven Design?

GDD isn’t just a way to build effective websites. It’s an entire philosophy, using cutting-edge data insights and other methodology to build a website that’s not only attractive, but evolves with your users’ online habits and your business strategy over time.

To inform your GDD process, it’s key to:

• Conduct user research around the people who matter to you most

• Create journey maps and empathy maps to see how you can solve people’s problems

• Consider consumer issues you want to solve by creating a wish list with your team 

Once those ideas, wants and needs have been identified it’s time to build a launchpad; a site in its most basic form that is still able to deliver your core message, products and more to the people who matter most to your long-term growth. As soon as the site is launched, you’re already collecting lead information, data and feedback in transparent, ethical and organic ways to build upon for the future.

No more months spent updating a website on a design hunch. Instead your website is built and optimised to the wants and needs of the people who matter to you most, attracting better leads as you go, converting sales, enhancing your overall growth and marketing strategies, and more that the traditional web design model simply can’t provide to the modern business.

Like most things in your marketing plan, you’re more likely to get to where you want to be more quickly if you plan a proper strategy. GDD helps to take assumptions and objectivity out of the equation, and helps brands to get to know their personas and the problems they face more accurately.

There are three key advantages that GDD has over the traditional web design process:

• Minimising risk: The issues with traditional web design represent a lot of risk for business owners. A GDD philosophy helps to negate a lot of these risks by approaching builds in a systematic way to reduce costs, avoid late deliveries and many other common problems.

• Constant evolution: Instead of spending months working toward a final product, GDD sites are built with the explicit intent of evolving over time, aligning with a company’s overall growth strategy and using key data to learn about visitors and change the site to suit their needs.

• Aligning departments: This philosophy helps to optimise website performance and also works to better align sales and marketing departments. Both departments are integrated into the GDD process, both contributing key data about existing and potential customers.