Attract your dream clients with these website design tweaks
So you’ve launched your website - fantastic! Having a website is one of the most important and effective things when you’re out trying to find clients. It’s a place for potential clients to see exactly what you do, read about your services, learn a bit more about you and (importantly) contact you!
Just as important as having a good website is making sure you 1. have people coming to your website and 2. have your website set up to capture the right type of clients.
In this article I’m not going to talk too much about how you generate traffic to your website, although it is super important! You’re not going to get any enquiries if you don’t have anyone visiting your website, right?
I’ve gained a lot of traffic on my website through Blogging, Pinterest and Instagram, and you can read those blog posts to see the strategies I’ve been using throughout my business.
Today we’re going to be talking about how to capture your dream clients once they’re ON your website!
You might think “well that’s simple, of course they’ll contact me once they’re on my website, they’re my dream client! It’s getting them there that is the hard part!”
But it’s not that simple. If your website isn’t set up to really attract them, then it’s probably set up to repel them *mic drop*.
Lucky for you, I’ve listed out all of the tweaks you can make to your website so that you can guarantee when your dream client lands on your site, they’ll for sure be reaching out!
Defining Your Dream Client
We ALL have a dream client. They are dying to work with us, absolutely adore the work we do and want to pay us in full as soon as possible, right? That’s the type of client we want contacting us!
But knowing that much isn’t enough. You need to go much deeper than that and identify your ideal client avatar (also known as your ideal client/customer, or your target customer).
If you have already defined your ideal client, that’s great! You can move on to the next steps. If you haven’t, stop right now and DO it. If you’re serious about attracting clients you actually want to work with, then you need to define exactly who that is.
And I mean exactly who that is. Male or Female? What is their occupation? What do they like to do in the weekends? How many kids do they have? What are their business struggles? What social media platforms do they spend the most time on and why? What brands do they love? What is their NAME?
Get out a pen and paper and brainstorm to your hearts content. Get so detailed on this person that you know them inside out.
If you want a guided workbook on how to do this, you can join my free course 5 Steps to DIY Your Dream Website where we go in-depth on how to define your ideal client.
Now that you have done that important step, we’ll move on to the actual design details of your website!
Craft Your Brand Message Statement
What does your business do, and who do you do it for?
You need to have a 1-2 sentence statement that explains exactly this, so once your ideal client lands on your site they know what you do straight away.
Some basic examples:
“Brand and Website Design for Creative Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners”
“Social Media Management for Busy Entrepreneurs”
“Brand Management for Social Media Influencers”
I recommend you give it your own spin and personality to sound less generic and more unique, but hopefully you get the idea.
Be completely clear on what you do. I see so many websites that don’t have a statement like this, so I’m left searching through their website so see what they’re actually offering — usually by that point I just leave, and imagine that most visitors will do the same.
Put this statement front and center on your website.
Once you’ve crafted your brand message statement, it needs to be in a place people can see it. Usually, you should place this front and center on your home page so it’s one of the first things people see when they land on your site.
You can use it throughout the rest of your site too, but it’s important that you have it on your homepage so that when someone lands on your site, they can decide straight away if your business is right for them or not.
Do not worry that your message will send people away. Actually, that’s ideal! You want your message to attract the right people and repel the wrong people — clearing the clutter is what I like to call it!
Your Website Design
This might sound simple, but if your site design actually something that your ideal client would be attracted to?
If you have your brand message statement front a center, that’s a great start. And of course you need your site to be simple to navigate and clear. But let’s dig deeper into the actual design elements here like colors, fonts and images.
Now I’m not going to give you a lesson on website design (although I’m struggling to stop myself) because you can find that information all over my website.
I’m talking more about how your website design is going to attract your ideal client.
What are their favorite colors? Do they like a more feminine style or a more masculine style? Are the more fun or professional? Do they like bright and fun or neutral and sleek? As much fun as it is designing your own site, you have to think less about what you want and more about what will attract your ideal client.
Images play a really important role in attracting your ideal client.
It’s important that you choose images that not only look good with your colors, but also attract your ideal client by invoking the right emotion in them and displaying relevant sort of people or objects.
If you want to get more into how and where to find perfect images for your site that attract your ideal client, sign up to my free course 5 Steps to DIY Your Dream Website.
Always view your website through your ideal clients eyes.
Strategically Write Your Copy
How does your ideal client speak? What sort of words do they use? Are they more professional and corporate, or are they more laid back and slang?
When you’re writing your copy, think about exactly who you are speaking to.
Again, don’t worry about turning the wrong people away with how you speak, just focus on attracting that one dreamy client.
If you want to know more about writing your copy, I go into lots of detail in my free course 5 Steps to DIY Your Dream Website.
Optimize Your Portfolio
Do you have a portfolio up? If not, you need one ASAP!
Having a Portfolio of your past work is a way to show your potential clients that you’re legitimate, you get results and you can actually do what you’re asking to be paid for. Personally, I wouldn’t hire anyone that didn’t have a previous work examples to show me.
There are a lot of reasons why I believe you need a portfolio on your site, but it’s also just as important to optimize your portfolio to attract your dream client.
It’s as simple as this: Don’t display portfolio pieces of jobs you don’t want to do more of.
If you don’t want to do website design for corporate business men, then don’t display a portfolio piece of a web design for a corporate business man. Because guess who that’s going to attract? A corporate business man who wants you to create a website for him!
If you’re thinking “yeah I understand, but I’ve never done any ‘dream’ jobs so I don’t have anything to show for it!”. Well, get out there and do some.
If you’re a designer you don’t have to be paid to create designs. When I first started, I created a bunch of websites and brands just for portfolio purposes, and you bet they were the types of designs I wanted to do more of and the types of designs that would entice my ideal clients.
If you’re doing something like Social Media Management or VA work, it’s not quite as simple as “creating” the work, since it’s more results based. Go take on a bit (a bit, not a lot) of unpaid or cheap work for an ideal client. It’s much easier to score a client you want to work with when you offer it for free or cheap.
I know a lot of people are against this, but if it means you can get some ideal pieces into your portfolio and some testimonials from dream clients, plus the experience with finally working for someone you actually want to work for, I believe it’s priceless! Also, you can ask them to “pay” you in a certain amount of referrals.
I did discounted work for 2 dream clients at the very start of my business and it was definitely worth it for the experience, the testimonials, the portfolio pieces and the referrals.
Long story short: only display items in your portfolio that you actually want to do more of and that will attract your dream client! And if that means creating some demo designs or doing a bit of cheap work with an ideal client to get some experience, it’s worth it in the long run.
If you can define your ideal client avatar really well, the rest of your website should fall into place. Whether it’s your copy, your design or your portfolio — everything on your site should attract your ideal client, down to the last little detail. Then, you’ll have your dream clients reaching out to you more often, and less of those not-so-dreamy clients.
Good luck!
