The biggest people make when designing their website happens BEFORE they even start designing it. Before you approach colors, fonts, theme or template choice and layout decisions you need to do two things:

1. Get clear on your brand strategy
2. Write ALL of your copy. Yes, I mean all of it.

Why your brand strategy should lead

Everything you do in your business should support your brand strategy. Your branding includes your logo, colors and fonts – but it also encompasses your mission, your target audience, your brand promise (what you deliver) and how you project your brand out into the world (including things like tone and messaging).

You don’t want to go ahead and choose your colors, fonts and website theme or template if you’re using one, before you give some really serious thought into who your target audience is and how you want to impact them. For instance, do you want them to feel calm when they come to you or empowered? Those are different color choices, my friend.

Especially if you’re building a personal brand (centered around yourself), you want to stay true to you authentic likes and dislikes and how you naturally come across to people, all while keeping your target customer and your deliverables in mind.

Why you need to write your copy first

Your brand strategy will also affect the content (the positioning of your products and/or services) and the tone of your copy. That’s why it’s step one.

Step two is writing all of your copy. This serves two purposes:

1. It brings your brand personality to life. Putting together all of your messaging in the exact words that will go onto the website conveys the tone and personality that you will then design the website aesthetic around. A great brand is consistent and will hit the same cues with both the words on the page and the overall design.
2. Your messaging is the most important! You want to design a website that highlights your copy and maintains the reader’s attention so that they read everything. You don’t want to be in the position of writing your copy to fit into your website.

That’s how you avoid making the biggest mistake people make when designing their website. And, I’ve got some good news – if you need help with your brand strategy and your copy, and with designing a website that serves your copy, Lauren of Truer Words by Lauren and I are putting together a three week Website Launch Bootcamp that tackles all three of these foundational business pillars. Learn all about it in the video below.