How To Choose An Epic Theme For Your Brand
CONGRATS! You’ve made the vital decision to build a website for your business! Excellent!
But now you’re faced with the incredibly overwhelming task of sifting through literally thousands of theme options to find the single one that perfectly represents you and your brand. It might feel impossible, but we’re here to tell you that it’s not.
Helping clients’ choose themes that perfectly align with their brand’s style, voice and message is something we do every day. So, we’ve pulled together our best strategies to help you find an epic theme that will give you a phenomenal online presence.
ASSESS YOUR BUSINESS
Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B.
A killer brand strategy tells your customer who you are, what they can expect from your product and services and why they should trust you. It also gives you a major edge by increasing customer loyalty and engagement.
So, before you can start designing and working on your website, you need to know your goals for that site.
Ask yourself:
What is the purpose of the site?
What is your message?
What content will you need – images, blog posts, forums, ecommerce?
How will you integrate your brand’s vision into the site – do you need bold images, or a feminine feel?
What sales funnels will you need?
Knowing your business’ brand vision will help you create a website that showcases what makes you unique and sets you apart.
DECIDE ON MUST-HAVE FEATURES
Once you’ve nailed the vision for your site, it’s time to create a concrete list of must-have features.
These might include things like an easy navigation menu, a shop, newsletters or a sidebar for your blog. Refer back to your list of questions above and make sure you’re considering how these features will work with your audience.
MAKE AN OUTLINE
Now create a really simple outline of what you want your site to look like (don’t worry about the pretty stuff – we’ll get to that later).
This outline will lay out where you want all the elements of your site – things such as your navigation bar, social media icons and subpages.
The outline will be different for everyone. For example, if you are developing a site for an ecommerce shop selling bathing suits, you might want your homepage to be ‘new arrivals’ – but if you’ve got a vegan food blog, you’ll likely want your most recent post to be the first page your audience sees.
Focus on what your website needs to connect with your audience.
CUSTOMISATIONS
No theme is perfect, and to get a website that perfectly aligns with you and your brand, you’ll need flexibility to customise.
Things like your brand’s fonts, logo and colour palette are important to incorporate through customisation so that your branding is consistent across all your platforms.
You may also need special features to enhance the user experience and turn traffic into leads. Things like plugins, apps and extensions can help you implement features with no coding or development skills needed. Make sure customisation is available in these areas as well.
DETAILS, DETAILS!
You’ve done all the above steps – fantastic! Now you just need to consider a few finer details.
SEO – Does your theme offer SEO capabilities that you can customise to your needs? It pays to consider the technical aspects of a theme, not just the visual ones.
User Experience – Is your theme going to create an incredible user experience? This is where you can finally think about how it looks (the pretty stuff)! You want your audience to connect with you and your brand, but also be able to easily find what they need.
Responsiveness – Does your site look incredible on desktops and on mobile devices? Before you settle on a theme, check the themes demos on your phone and see how they look and if they work well.
SIMPLE IS BEAUTIFUL
Remember, websites that are too busy take away from your message and your call-to-action (and even impact SEO).
Keep it simple. Focus on giving your audience what they are looking for – nothing more and nothing less. Simple is beautiful.
Need more help choosing the quintessential theme for your brand’s website? Giulia and Alex help clients’ choose themes everyday, all day (when they’re not at the coffee shop that is). Get in touch here.