The ultimate guide to creating a bada$$ website strategy

You’re a digital leader on a mission, with an ambitious vision to elevate your website to dizzying heights. 

But looking at the mind-boggling number of sites out there (we’re talking a billion and then some), it can feel like a fool’s errand to even try to get ahead of the pack with a standout digital experience.

And with more than your fair share of responsibilities commanding your attention (and taking the last shred of your sanity with it), you’re probably not even sure where to begin. And when your boss asks you to show your website ROI, it’s easy to hear those alarm bells ringing.

Creating an engaging online presence for your business requires more than creativity and gut feel — it demands strategy. The good news is, getting started with your website strategy doesn’t have to be a headache. In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to create yours.

But first, let’s start with the basics.

What’s a website strategy, anyway?

A website strategy is a step-by-step plan outlining everything your team needs to execute on website initiatives like development, maintenance and redesign, all the way from ideation to delivery.

It outlines your business’s core purpose, target audience, and desired customer experiences. Then, it defines the key projects needed to meet these requirements, ensuring your site optimizes user engagement and boosts its online visibility.  

Think of your website strategy as a plan for how your website will meet customer needs and achieve your business objectives. This gives your team direction and a shared sense of purpose around ensuring your website resonates well with your target audience.

So many factors go into a successful website — a website that maximizes customer satisfaction and business returns. Some key elements of a well-formed website strategy include the following:

• Website design requirements: An effective website strategy homes in on the essential features your website should offer. We’re talking things like accessibility, intuitive interfaces, responsive design, fast loading speeds, and smartphone-friendly navigation, yes. But don’t forget your website also needs to offer a highly relevant and engaging experience to match the individual preferences and needs of each visitor. Features like personalization and localization have quickly become critical components of any effective website strategy.
• Target audience research: A well-thought-out website strategy draws on relevant data around the demographics, location, interests, and pain points of your potential customers. This means no more shooting in the dark, or going down a path full of potential missteps, costly mistakes, and losses.
• Website goals: Your website strategy should include an action plan for achieving your website’s goals and objectives (these should be specific and measurable, more on that below), and include details on how you’ll be monitoring progress.
• Budget and available resources: Budget overruns can and do often happen on website development projects. With a solid website strategy in place, however, you’ll be far more likely to avoid problems or delays that can put your project over budget.

Basically, your strategy acts as a roadmap for your website, guiding you in the right direction to meet your digital goals.

With that out of the way, let’s dig a little deeper into why digital leaders should make it a priority to craft a strong website strategy.

Why you should have a well-crafted website strategy

Creating a website strategy is super beneficial for your business.

Yes, it takes a bit more upfront work from you and your team, but it will lead to more impactful results in the long run when it comes to your website’s efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction. 🚀 

On the flipside, skipping strategy creation can lead to wasted time and resources, missed opportunities, and a tangibly worse user experience for your website visitors. ⚠️

How a website strategy benefits your business

On a macro level, your website strategy should enhance your marketing position and increase your ROI.

On a micro level, these benefits bring something distinct to the table.

Let’s say you’re kicking off a blog redesign as your current website is built on outdated technology and you need some new features and functionality. Let’s go over just a few of the compelling benefits of website strategy planning:

• Better cost efficiency — following a targeted website strategy improves cost efficiency by helping you strategically allocate resources such as budget, time, and team members.
• Clear direction and focus — without a comprehensive website strategy in place, you can make costly mistakes. This could include investing in the wrong tech, overlooking user experience, and more.
• Keeps your team on track — with a documented website strategy, everyone in the team is on the same page.
• Faster time-to-market — a website that has a thought-out strategy behind it is well positioned to outperform competitors, setting it apart to get the lion’s share of your target audience’s engagement and increased market share and revenue.

Okay, so we’ve sold you on just how vital having a well-documented website strategy is.

Next, let’s break down the “how” into eight simple steps.

8 steps to creating a bada$$ website strategy

Developing a website strategy involves a series of well-defined steps. Don’t miss a beat — set your site up for success this 8-step website strategy checklist. 🕺

1. Set the right goals and KPIs

   Clear, forward-facing objectives provide direction, giving your website project structure and meaning. By clearly articulating your website’s overarching objectives, your team can better organize their daily workflows and align with a shared vision for success.

   In this section of your website strategy, you’ll describe specific, measurable, and realistic goals your website that tie in with your business’s long-term vision, whether that’s organic traffic, sales, and/or revenue.

   Let’s say your goal is to improve user experience on your website. Some commonly used metrics you could track include:
   
   

   Bounce rate
   Time on site
   Pages per session
   Conversion rate
   
   These metrics can give a strong indication of where your user experience is meeting expectations, or where it’s falling short. But creating goals and KPIs is just the start. Next, you need to get a clear picture of your target audience.
2. Understand your audience
   When it comes to formulating your website strategy, the end user is everything.
   
   As the saying goes, customers come first, so always build your website strategy to enhance their experience with your brand. Consider their end goal and the different ways your website can support those goals and help visitors convert.
   
   Use any relevant data you’ve got on file, including personas, user stories and sales feedback. This way, you can be confident you’re hyper-focused on website initiatives that give you an edge over your competitors.
   
   So, you’ve identified your target users — good stuff. Now, let’s crack on with how to…
3. Choose your content types
   Your website content is probably made up of a mixture of several different formats. Some common content types for a SaaS website, for example, could include:
   
   Blog posts
   Ebooks
   Guides
   Webinars
   Video content
   Customer stories
   Product-focused landing pages
   

   All of these different content types can be used to achieve different website goals, whether it’s driving traffic, generating leads, or something else entirely.

   It’s well worth taking some time to make a “map” of all your existing website content. This way, you can help your team identify opportunities to reuse existing content across these different content types and map out workflows that allows you to systemize and scale your content creation.

4. Research your competitors
   Your website exists in a market, not a vacuum.
   
   So, take the time to thoroughly research and understand your competitors’ websites to determine what tactics work well and benchmark your own site’s performance. At this juncture, you’ll want to assess both direct and indirect competitors.
   
   Direct competitors: These guys offer similar products or solutions to you — you’ll garner the most relevant insights from them.
   
   Indirect competitors: Don’t overlook indirect competitors — they can give you a better sense of audience needs and preferences in your industry.
   
   It’s important to understand how your competitors have built and structured their digital experience to cater to your shared audience’s needs and preferences. You can also uncover their weaker points (*twirls mustache and laughs evilly*) and figure out where you stand in the industry. You’ll need these kinds of in-depth insights to get ahead, and it shows stakeholders you know what you’re doing.
   
   Sounding like a lot to add to your plate? Without conducting these analyses, you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose out on some serious opportunities for improvement and innovation. 😬
5. Bring your stakeholders into the mix
   Woah there, you almost missed a step!
   
   Here’s when you’ll be looping in key stakeholders interested in your website and their expectations for its success.
   
   These include everyone who has a vested interest in your website — including internal teams like product, marketing, and design, as well as external individuals, like key clients. Identifying these critical stakeholders helps everyone stay aligned on their roles in your website strategy rollout, and that you’ve considered their opinions on the website before making any decisions. Delve deep into their needs and expectations for the website — this lays the foundation for a truly integrated website strategy.
   
   By involving team members and end users right from the get-go, you’ll get the feedback you need to ensure your strategy is addressing their pain points. While it might be tempting to keep these guys out of the loop so your team can quickly get through tasks and stay on track, they’re critical to your website strategy’s success.
6. Build a high-level plan
   This is where you’ll map out a project schedule with phases, milestones, and due dates. Make sure you outline a detailed website project plan that includes tasks, timelines, and the resources needed to achieve each milestone. Setting deadlines ensures your team understand the timeline and can allocate resources accordingly.
7. Choose your tech stack
   Choosing the best tech stack for your website is one of the most important parts of your website strategy. Now’s your opportunity to review whether your website builder is still serving you well or whether you’re in need of an upgrade, so make sure to go a little deeper into how different CMS solutions stack up.
   
   For example, you might want to switch up your website’s CMS to one that can deliver strong omnichannel capabilities.
8. Measure and report on your results
   One of the most challenging aspects of building a website is separating personal preferences and biases from your audience’s needs. You might a big fan of your swanky new pricing page design, for example, but the bounce rate is sky high.
   
   So, once your website strategy is in full rollout mode, pay attention to the key website metrics you identified at the outset. User testing methods like A/B testing, heatmap analyses, and surveys will all help you pinpoint whether your website strategy’s hitting the mark. 🎯
   
   Knowing when it’s time to course-correct ain't always easy. You might not realize you’ve made a mistake and need to adapt your strategy mid-execution without tracking the right metrics to see just how effective your website initiatives are.

Final thoughts

Putting your ideas down onto paper, and turning your website ideas into a reality, can seem like a daunting task. Just remember, all great websites start and finish with a solid strategy.

With all of that hard work out of the way, you’ll be left with a high-quality site with a beautiful design, thoughtful content, great user experience, more traffic, more leads and ultimately, a better return on your investment. 👏