What is your website actually for?

Answer in one sentence, without using the word and.

Most owners cannot, and that is the finding. The site is supposed to look professional, explain what we do, bring enquiries, show our clients, carry the brochure and have a careers page because somebody asked for one.

Six purposes. A page that serves six purposes serves none, because every one of them wants the visitor to do something different.

Why one purpose changes everything

Once you know the single job, every later decision answers itself.

If the job is enquiries, then the enquiry path is the biggest thing on the page and everything that competes with it goes lower. The company history moves down. The long list of services becomes a short one.

If the job is credibility, because your work actually comes from references and people check you afterwards, then the site should be built around proof. Real photographs, real names, real projects. The enquiry form matters much less, and pretending otherwise just clutters it.

These are two completely different websites, and both are correct for their business. What is not correct is building one that half does each.

How to find your own answer

Look at where your last twenty customers actually came from.

If most came by reference, your site is a credibility tool and should be built like one. If most found you by searching, it is a sales tool. If none of them ever saw it, that is worth knowing too, and the question becomes whether you want it to do a job at all.

That last answer is allowed. A site that honestly exists to prove you are real is a fine thing, as long as nobody is expecting it to bring work.

Say it in one sentence with no and in it. What is your website for?

Deciding the one job a site has to do, and then building everything around it, is how we approach a website. Tell us where your last twenty customers came from and we will tell you what yours should be.