HOW TO CREATE A LUXURY ONLINE PRESENCE WITHOUT SPENDING A FORTUNE
I can answer this using 4 words: IMAGES, FONTS, LAYOUT, COPY (WORDING)
Your website isn’t that complicated if you hire someone to design it with an amazing eye for what works for a client today using ChatGPT and AI friendly wording to push you into searches and being relevant in your industry. Let me break each one of these down … and keep in mind, the formula only works if all 3 are working together.
IMAGES
The images you choose for your website should not be thought of as permanent … if you know that the last time your homepage images were updated was when your website designer left it in your capable hands, then we may have a problem … if that was last week, no worries … but if we are talking a year or more, it’s definitely time to refresh those photos.
Images do more than just look pretty. Images have an important job to do in searches … if named correctly for your particular target market, they can drive traffic to your website organically. Images that are both beautiful, current, photographed well, and inline with your brand and message AND named in the alt text with power driven wording for YOUR CLIENT to find you are key to a successful website.
FONTS
Fonts, like images, get dated. Fonts are not something that will stand the test of time … great example: when I was getting married the popular invitation font was Zapfino … CRINGE NOW, right??? But back then it was on EVERYTHING for my wedding … when you get your website and logo designed, you most likely LOVE your font … but do a checkin 3 years later and you may realize it’s very dated.
Fonts are one of those things that you may think: does a client really pay attention to that? The answer is yes and no … while they certainly don’t analyze it when they pop into your website, the fonts do give an overall vibe when paired with the rest of your online face … it’s like putting a beautiful pasta sauce on super overcooked pasta … the sauce may be amazing, but nobody is going to even care when they have mush in their mouth … your website could be GORGEOUS in layout and images … but the fonts chosen can throw the whole thing off. I love a good serif mixed with san serif … or a serif mixed with a current script is always nice too depending on the type of business.
LAYOUT
Beautiful images … perfect and current fonts … bad layout … BAD bounce rate … a website is like a magazine for your potential clients to browse to decide if they want to hire you. I’d love to say that pretty photos is enough, but these days especially, people want to be visually entertained. The layout has to make sense while being user friendly and ‘page view / click’ driven … you want to organically guide people to visit more pages without making them realize it … and if they aren’t impressed within the first 5 seconds? Well they will be gone without plans on returning …
COPY (WORDING)
I admit, I used to think copy was just a way to break up pretty photos and make it clear without overdoing it ‘what you do and what you offer’ … that has changed significantly … it used to be User Experience Optimization was the best focus … and I’m not downplaying that, as it still applies for success … but we need to bring in a new player now: AI … ChatGPT … Claude … I wanted to fight it! I wanted to not accept that these were going to be a huge part of my job … because in a way, I felt like I would be replaced … but not so fast! Working to learn AI for my clients and for their websites is massive and I’m so excited about what I’m learning. It is mandatory now that your website ‘please’ the robots … that your website has content that makes them smile and WANT to refer you when potential clients are on their asking advice on who they should hire for such and such …
In fact, redoing your entire homepage for ChatGPT is probably not a bad idea … I know that’s what I’m doing for myself now and what I’m doing for a ton of my clients … getting ahead of it before it makes a run for it and your competitors are winning the AI race.
Now comes into play: get all that without spending a fortune … I offer 2 avenues to having a website built for success on a budget … I have my custom made Squarespace templates that have a starting price of $2800 and I also have my DIY templates … websites that are prebuilt that you pop your own wording and images into … and those are less than $500 … if your budget is a little more than $2800 and you are looking for something fully custom, I offer that too and you can certainly contact me for pricing.
XO~ Heather
