Tips on how to Design Your First Branded Enterprise Web site

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In case you’re of a sure age—let’s say 35 or older — you in all probability keep in mind the awe and immersion you felt the primary time you spun up Netscape Navigator and visited your favourite model’s enterprise “web site.”

Now fast-forward to this age of AI, Uber, Roblox, Meta, Snapchat, and a lot extra… And guess what? A web site continues to be one of the simplest ways to share your model with the world.

That’s true whether or not you’re a mega model or a humble creator, solopreneur, or small enterprise proprietor. Many years on, an internet site nonetheless supplies unparalleled inventive flexibility and management over your model. It’s a spot the place guests can be taught extra about you in your phrases. An awesome web site helps you inform your story, construct belief, and even create group and followers for all times.

At present we’re sharing a primer on branding and web site design for on-line creators and entrepreneurs. We’ll stroll you thru how one can design an internet site to your model, whether or not you’re a creator, solopreneur, or small enterprise proprietor with a staff of workers.

This text received’t operate as a step-by-step information to launching an internet site or go into an excessive amount of depth on the subject of branding itself. (For that, The SPI Newbie’s Information to Branding may help you outline your model’s mission, imaginative and prescient, and extra, and determine if it ought to be a private model or an organization model.)

Moderately, this can be a area information to designing an internet site that places your model entrance and heart and connects along with your target market.

Hand drawn website wireframes.
Picture by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Why You Want a Branded Web site

So why a branded enterprise web site? Alongside along with your electronic mail record, an internet site is a must have once you’re beginning out constructing your model. Like an electronic mail record, you’ve gotten extra inventive and administrative management over an internet site than you do your presence on different platforms like Fb, Instagram, or Etsy. And apart from uncommon service interruptions or safety breaches, your website is far much less prone to disappear the best way a social media account might be banned or suspended.

Your branded web site is like your private home base, a focal place for shaping your model picture and narrative. At SPI, we not too long ago revamped our web site to concentrate on our core focus of group constructing and make it cleaner and simpler to navigate.

Right here’s what a well-crafted small enterprise web site may help you do:

  • Management your model: A web site offers you full management over the way you present your model to the world, with out the inventive restrictions of third-party platforms. It additionally diversifies your on-line presence, lowering dependence on any single platform.
  • Construct belief: A well-designed web site lends an air of professionalism and legitimacy to your model, instilling belief.
  • Personal your content material: You personal and management the content material in your web site, lowering the danger that algorithm adjustments or platform shutdowns will harm your content material’s attain and visibility.
  • Generate profits: You need to use your web site to advertise and promote services and products or run advertisements.
  • Construct group: Web sites provide a devoted area for constructing a group and a following. You possibly can seize publication and email-list sign-ups, and even hyperlink to your personal membership group.
  • Showcase your work: Use your web site to share case research, testimonials, and portfolios of your work along with your viewers.
  • Perceive your viewers: Web site analytics present precious knowledge on person habits, serving to you higher perceive your viewers and optimize your content material to succeed in them.

Your Web site Ought to Categorical Your Model Character

When lots of people hear the phrase model, they suppose emblem. And true, a emblem is a key a part of your creator or on-line entrepreneur model — however your model can be much more than only a snazzy graphic. Since your web site is your private home base, it’s the most effective place to convey the essence of your model by means of the next key components:

Patagonia's purpose statement on its website: "to save our home planet."
Patagonia’s objective assertion is straightforward however highly effective: to avoid wasting our house planet.
  • Colour scheme: Make the most of a most of 4 brand-reflective colours. Align colours with professionalism; keep away from mismatch. Discover coloration psychology—the research of how colours have an effect on perceptions and behaviors—for steering.
Screenshot of Ali Abdaal's home page.
Ali Abdaal’s website makes use of a chilled combo of gray, black, blue, and white.
  • Tone of voice: Past aesthetics, your branded enterprise web site wants a definite voice — a tone that informs all of your written content material. Adapt your tone to your persona, area of interest, and viewers, protecting it approachable and jargon-free.
Screenshot of the Smart Passive Income home page: "Become the entrepreneur you want to be."
At SPI, we goal for a mixture of pleasant, even somewhat informal, however punchy.
  • Tagline or motto: A concise, memorable tagline helps convey your model id and worth in bite-size type. It’s somewhat element that may matter lots!
Dollar Shave Club's homepage: "Shave time. Shave money."
Greenback Shave Membership’s tagline is #dadjoke perfection, conveying the model’s irreverent nature.
  • Signature font: Select one or two readable fonts that replicate your persona, for consistency throughout the whole lot you write and to bridge your model’s visible id with its written one.
Example of SPI's signature font: Figtree.
SPI’s signature font, Figtree, matches our model voice by being approachable.
  • Unforgettable emblem: Final however not least, an attention-grabbing emblem supplies immediate model recognition. Contemplate enlisting a graphic designer for this one.
Jay Clouse's Creator Science logo.
The emblem for Jay Clouse’s Creator Science model captures each components (get it?) of the model title completely.

Optimizing the Visible Expertise of Your On-line Enterprise Web site

For probably the most half, guests will expertise your web site visually, so there are a number of extra essential issues in relation to your website’s visible property. Be certain that the photographs, background designs, and different visuals you employ in your website are:

  • Related to your model and content material: This may occasionally appear apparent, however your web site visuals ought to make sense within the context of your model and the encompassing content material. Every visible asset ought to complement and improve the content material it accompanies and align along with your model’s id, reflecting its values, persona, and messaging. 
  • Strategically positioned: Place visuals purposefully to information the person’s journey and emphasize key messages. Contemplate the circulate of the web site and the way visuals can improve storytelling.
Gif of Paul Furey's animated website text: "We want to be honest, and yet ... we all find good reasons not to be."
Advisor Paul Furey’s web site makes use of textual content and pictures to inform a narrative in a charming means.
  • Constant in type: Sustaining a constant visible type throughout all photographs creates a cohesive and harmonious look and helps with model recognition. Use these model colours!
Example of SPI's branded color palette and icons.
Icons representing completely different components of our on-line group share the identical feel and look, together with coloration palette.
  • Top quality: Use high-resolution, skilled photographs; grainy or pixelated ones can detract out of your model’s credibility.
  • Accessible: Not all your guests shall be experiencing your branded enterprise web site visually, so be sure that any visible property are accessible by including descriptive alt textual content to all your photographs.
  • Optimized and responsive: Visible property ought to adapt properly to varied display sizes, significantly on cell units. They need to even be compressed to enhance loading instances (and search engine rankings).
Web design firm Nettl's ad campaign showing the humorous risk of not making your images mobile responsive. The full web page reads: "Badminton Scuba Breathing Apparatus" but the superimposed iPhone version reads "Bad breath."
Net design agency Nettl’s advert marketing campaign confirmed the humorous danger of not making your photographs cell responsive.
  • Authorized: All photographs ought to be both authentic, correctly licensed, or fall beneath honest use. Respect copyright legal guidelines, and get permission if it’s essential!
  • Timeless: As a lot as doable, select visuals that may evolve along with your model quite than tendencies that may change into outdated.
  • Human: Human faces and expressions can create a stronger emotional reference to the viewers, so incorporate photographs that characteristic folks.
Screenshot from the SPI community: "Ready to find [crossed out] join your people and level up?" Smiling faces decorate the page.
The SPI group is made up of individuals, in any case!

By ensuring the visible and written expertise of your web site is constant, skilled, and aligned along with your model id and voice, you’ll foster a way of familiarity and belief along with your viewers.

A Nice Creator Web site Wants a Nice Person Expertise: Structure and Navigation

Your web site isn’t only a static show; it’s an interactive expertise to your viewers. When you’ve established the important thing model components your web site wants, out of your model’s objective to its voice, tone, and visible id, it’s time to start out designing the precise website structure.

As you’re selecting a structure, take into consideration what’s going to finest convey your model id and message whereas making issues as seamless and intuitive as doable to your guests to navigate and discover what they’re on the lookout for. Listed here are some fashionable structure choices to think about:

  • Single-Column: Clear and simple, with a single column for simple navigation.
Screenshot from Seth Godin's blog, showing the advantage of a single-column layout.
Seth Godin’s well-known weblog takes benefit of the simplicity of a single-column structure.
  • Grid: Organizes content material right into a visually interesting grid construction, appropriate for showcasing a number of gadgets effectively, like portfolios or product shows.
  • Journal or Weblog Structure: Mimics {a magazine} or weblog with a number of columns — well-suited for content-heavy web sites.
Screenshot from The Verge's home page, showing the example of a magazine-style website layout.
The Verge’s website is a daring instance of journal structure.
  • Hero Picture or Video: Includes a hanging picture or video on the prime, capturing rapid consideration and infrequently used for product showcases or setting the model tone.
  • Break up Display: Divides the webpage into two distinct sections, offering a contemporary and visually interesting design with room for inventive components.
  • Parallax Scrolling: Creates a dynamic scrolling expertise with background components shifting at completely different speeds, including depth and interactivity.
  • Card: Presents content material in modular and versatile playing cards, selling visible hierarchy and simple group, appropriate for numerous varieties of info.
Screenshot of SPI's card-style testimonials on our Community page.
We use playing cards to share member testimonials on our Neighborhood web page, made utilizing Testimonial.to.
  • Full-Display Background: Incorporates a full-screen picture or video background for a visually immersive expertise.

A fast word on navigation: No matter structure you select, your customers’ ease in navigating your website will decide how lengthy they stick round and whether or not they’ll discover what they want—or in the event that they’ll get pissed off and quit. You may as well assist folks navigate your branded web site by means of cautious placement and group of menus and footers.

The Strategic Content material Your Web site Wants

You’ve discovered your model’s visible id and voice and chosen a structure for the location. Now it’s essential fill it with helpful content material that tells your guests who you’re, what you do, and how one can assist them!

These are among the key pages to think about to your branded enterprise web site—some are must-haves, whereas others will depend upon your enterprise and choices:

  • Residence Web page: The house web page ought to provide a snapshot of your model, engaging guests to discover additional, speaking your distinctive worth proposition, and guiding customers to key sections of your web site.
  • Weblog: Past selling your services or products, blogs are nonetheless a preferred option to share precious content material that positions you as an authority in your area of interest.
  • Podcast Web page: You probably have a podcast, you need to undoubtedly have a devoted web page for it in your website. Though your podcast can technically exist with out a web site, a podcast web page can promote your present and assist listeners be taught extra about your model and choices.
  • Credibility Part: Testimonials, case research, and press protection showcase the optimistic experiences of others, establishing your model’s credibility and reliability and constructing belief. This content material can dwell by itself web page or be positioned strategically at completely different locations in your website.
  • Product/Service Pages: Every services or products web page ought to present detailed info, advantages, and a compelling name to motion (CTA). 
  • Model Story/About Web page: Your viewers connects with the folks and the story behind your on-line enterprise. Use this web page to speak your mission, values, and the journey that led to the creation of your model.
  • Store Web page: If you wish to use your website to promote issues, you’ll want a store web page with simple navigation, clear product categorization, and a streamlined checkout course of.

Examples of On-line Creator and Entrepreneur Branded Web sites

For somewhat inspiration, right here’s a number of nice branded enterprise web sites created by on-line creators and entrepreneurs identical to you! These people all occur to be members of our SPI Professional group, which you’ll be taught extra about at SmartPassiveIncome.com/group.

Gnome Angel

Ange Wilson’s quilting-based creator enterprise web site has a robust, vibrant visible id based mostly round a palette of pinks and blues and a playful header font. The Gnome Angel worth proposition greets you as quickly as you open the house web page, and as you scroll you study Gnome Angel’s sources and merchandise through a “patchwork” design type that evokes a quilt. The “sticky” navigation menu persists as you descend the house web page, offering easy accessibility to the remainder of the location.

Gnome Angel's quilting-based creator website home page: Gnome smiles with an image of a colorful quilt and playful fonts.
Gnome Angel’s quilting web site makes use of a colourful palette and playful fonts.

Piscari

The Piscari website is an organization model web site with a easy, clear, useful house web page that serves as an About web page for the corporate and its founder, Mike Lander, with a hyperlink to hitch the Piscari electronic mail record on the backside. A prime nav menu that shows on each web page makes it simple to be taught extra concerning the firm, its providers, and different sources. The “Contact Us” button, framed in daring inexperienced, highlights the primary name to motion guests are inspired to take.

Mike Lander's Piscari homepage, with a clean design and simple graphics.
Mike Lander’s Pisacari web site makes use of a clear, but colourful homepage design.

Jette Stubbs

Profession and enterprise coach Jette Stubbs’ website introduces her choices proper off the bat, adopted by a pleasant picture of Jette that humanizes the model. The easy single-column structure reduces distraction and guides you down the web page as you encounter a cheerful consumer’s testimonial and be taught extra about Jette’s providers. Graphic components and pictures are interspersed all through, together with refined font coloration adjustments to spark consideration. The parallax scroll impact with Jette’s face within the background provides extra human dimension and a little bit of novelty. A easy prime navigation menu is duplicated on the backside, with hyperlinks to an About web page, Jette’s podcast, and testimonials.

Jette Stubbs' homepage, featuring a photo of Jette smiling and introducing her offerings.
Jette Stubbs’ website is constructed round humanizing her model and introducing choices rapidly.

Nonetheless on the Fence about Constructing a Web site for Your Small Enterprise? 

We’ll finish with a number of reminders — and by debunking a number of frequent misconceptions about making a branded enterprise web site:

  • Sure, you do want an internet site. Web sites aren’t only for large firms, and social media isn’t sufficient.
  • Your web site doesn’t must be complicated or aesthetically beautiful. Easy, user-friendly designs usually carry out higher, so concentrate on readability and performance above all.
  • A web site wants consideration. Your web site isn’t simply going to draw visitors by itself. You’ll want to put it up for sale and repeatedly populate it with contemporary, Web optimization-rich content material.
  • You don’t must go it alone. There are many nice designers on the market who may help you craft a emblem and construct a professional-looking branded web site. (We labored with the nice folks at Rockbase for our redesign.)

In case you’re feeling daunted, don’t! We’ve received all of the help it’s essential begin constructing your model and designing a killer web site to point out it off to the world. Take a look at our website’s Free Assets tab, the place you’ll discover content material for entrepreneurs at any degree. In case you’re able to take the following large step in your on-line work trip, head to SmartPassiveIncome.com/group to study our communities for on-line entrepreneurs. You possibly can be taught from others such as you who’ve constructed their very own branded web sites, achieve entry to our full library of programs, take part in dwell occasions, and extra.

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