Planning Your Wix Website Design

In this lecture, we're going to cover having a website plan. Don't consider this a prerequisite to having a website, but more so a complement. Therefore, you have a strategy for your website, and you're optimizing the ways in which you can stay organized. The first thing is to identify the goals of having a website. You're not limited with the goals, but yet this ensures there is a level of intention that you have when you're thinking of creating a website. The next thing is understanding the types of websites that exist based off of your goals. And then third, we have the design. Contrary to belief, your visuals should not only be based off of your personal preferences, but it's thinking about the targeted audience that would be using the website and the design that they would be most receptive to. And then lastly, you have the functionality. This is usually better understood when you break it down into steps. Should they go from the homepage to services to then filling out the contact form? Or is it that they go from the homepage to your store, and then they add a product to the shopping cart? All of this is considered a workflow or something that's baked inside of the user journey, and there is functionality that you can have integrated in your website. Therefore, your user can use the website based off of your envisioned workflow. The next thing is going to be your website wording, and this is where you have an opportunity to be able to be descriptive as you're telling your story, as you're giving the audience an opportunity to learn about the process, about what they're getting, especially as you're thinking about how detail-oriented you sometimes have to be about services, as well as sometimes when you're writing information associated with a product. All of this is your wording, and in this day and age, you can use artificial intelligence or AI to help you. This is integrated inside of Wix already, and you can also use third-party tooling such as ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini to help you with creating your wording as well. Lastly, here we have your website media. So if you do have photos and videos, you can absolutely upload this into the website, but if you don't have media, Wix does provide a lot of this, and there are also third-party providers as well. The most important thing is that if you're not supplying your own photos and videos, you're still being proactive about identifying the type. Are you going to use photos of nature? Are you going to do videos of human interaction? These are things you can absolutely plan ahead for. Therefore, when it's time to use the media, you understand the direction you would like to go in regarding photos and videos. So starting off are your website goals. Now, please understand you are not limited to the number of goals that you can have. So with that, definitely list out all of the goals that you have in mind, but then also being descriptive too. That is incredibly important. And so for here, we see awareness and interest, and we also see conversions. So if you put down awareness and interest, and let's say if you had a service-based business, awareness and interest could be you see looking at data on your website within Wix, there are a number of people who are reading your process page, so they are now aware of your process. You also see that there is a strong amount of viewership associated with the number of people who are spending time on the pages regarding services because you have videos there. That is a really good way of seeing if your audience is aware and interested. It's looking at the amount of time they're spending on your website, but by being descriptive and saying, I want them to learn about our process, I want them to learn about our services, that is a good descriptive goal as opposed to just saying awareness and interest. The next thing here are conversions. So getting your visitors to do what you want them to do, buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, download a white paper, scheduling an appointment or filling out a form, all of these are conversions and they are measurable, meaning you've gone back after the fact and you have seen that these actions have been taken. Again, it's very good to be descriptive, but also you can set up quantitative goals too. So let's say if you get 100 views on your website, you could say the goal is to have a 2% conversion rate. So out of every 100 views you get on your site, two people convert and fill out a form. Those are the types of things that we do want to think about when we're being descriptive about conversions versus with awareness and interest where you might not be looking at the numbers from that perspective. With conversions, you absolutely can and Wix does provide a lot of that data to you. So again, you're not limited with the number of goals that you could have. The most important thing is that you're being descriptive and where possible, you're measuring it as well. So then that funnels us into the type of website that you need. So if you were someone and you said, all I need is awareness and I'm interested in people simply taking the time to learn about me because they're interested, an informational website may suffice. But also we have others as well, such as an e-commerce website, which is where you're selling things, or a blog website as well, which would be routinely updated. The reason why we make that distinction between an informational website and a blog website, which is blog centered, or even sometimes having an informational website with a blog is typically speaking with a blog, you know it's going to be regularly updated. If you have a business website, you might not have a need to touch the website, let's say every month. So with a blog, it is good to have some information there saying it's going to be updated routinely, so please come back. So we consider this to be another type of website because you'd be providing that information to set the expectation with your audience. And then lastly, here we do have a landing page website. This is where all of the information is pretty much on one page. These websites are a bit longer, so this allows people to scroll through and they're going from section to section. But this helps you with planning because there are different things that you can get from Wix based off of the type of website you're going to have. With an informational website, you might not need any other type of functionality because you know you're only sticking to the basics. With an e-commerce website where you know you're going to have a store, you would add in Wix stores. This gives you the ability to have a shopping cart and collect payment. So thinking back to how we talked about website functionality, that is, of course, functionality that you would need and that your users would use to purchase a product. Then you have your blog. There is a Wix blog bit of functionality that you can add in that allows you as an administrator to be able to create ongoing and routine content that you're going to publish to your website. These are the types of things to keep in mind as you're thinking about the type of website because then the next thing is identifying how you want your website to look. Again, this should not only be based on personal preferences, but thinking about the targeted audience and the design they're going to be most receptive to. This is inclusive of the colors and making it to where it's user-friendly. This is thinking about if the text can be read. It's also making sure the colors are complementary. Also, it's looking at the layout. Do you want something that's more boxed in or something that's more full width? Also, looking at the page quantity because then those are the numbers of pages you have to design. Also, it's the functionality. So in addition to informational pages, it's designing the blog, a store, a portfolio, an application, and more. The branding, yes, does include the colors, but branding specifically. Thinking about your brand, whether it's you as an individual or a business, how do you want to showcase your logo on the website? Of course, it's very common in the header in the top left, but there are also opportunities across other parts of the website, in the footer, across other parts of the pages. All of this is you thinking strategically about making sure your user understands they're on your brand's website. And then lastly, it's looking at example websites you like. Now, Wix does provide templates. And what this means is that you do not have to start from blank. You can start from a template, which is a pre-designed website, and you can change out their content for yours. And so even if you don't choose to take this method, you can still look at it for reference. And there are other websites as well that have templates such as ThemeForest, but you're not limited to these two websites. There are a lot of other examples out there available on the web that you can leverage as a reference for design. The next thing is your website's functionality in addition to the informational content. Now, the best way of looking at this is from a process-oriented perspective. And so as an example, step one could be they go to your homepage. Step two is that they land on your services page. And then step three is that they realize they'd like to work with you, so they need to book time. And you would need a scheduler. And the functionality is Wix Bookings because this allows you to have a schedule where someone can book time. The second scenario is someone goes to your website, they land in the store section, and then they purchase the product, and they submit the order, and then it goes to you, so then as the administrator, you can fulfill it. This is a Wix e-commerce functionality that is within Wix Stores. Another example is someone lands on your website, and they immediately know they want to work with you, so they need to be able to fill out a form, and you could use Wix Forms. And then lastly, someone goes to your website, they see that you are offering a subscription model, so they need to be able to pay, so then they can access members-only content. This is Wix Subscriptions as well as Wix Members. So all of this is an example of functionality in addition to information, but you're not limited to this. There are a lot of other opportunities such as having a portfolio or having a blog. The most important thing is that you're taking a proactive approach by thinking about all of the functionality that you're going to need. Therefore, you're leveraging Wix, and you're doing so in a way to where you're selecting the right respective functionality based off of the capabilities that you know you need to have.