How to Plan Your Client-Winning Website With Squarespace Templates
Imagine this: you're moving into your dream home designed by an expert builder, customized just for your family. You couldn't be more excited to start decorating, living, and entertaining in your new space. Sounds amazing, right? Now this house wasn't built overnight. In fact, it took lots of careful planning to turn out just right. But thanks to your vision and the professionals that brought it to life, you know this space has the potential to be your forever home!
What if I told you this exact thing can be said about your website, too? It's an online home for your brand, and the best website is going to be the one built by an expert and customized to fit your business. Enter Squarespace templates: pre-built websites designed to give you a headstart on getting your website launched.
Just as you would sit down and plan out your home build before you ever broke ground, building a website — even with the help of a Squarespace template — requires intentional planning before picking the perfect template. In this blog post, we're going to cover 3 steps to planning your website, plus 8 requirements for the perfect template selection.
3 Steps to Planning Your Squarespace Website
Before we dive in, this blog post goes perfectly hand in hand with our free Website Content Planning Workbook. This digital workbook will help you get crystal clear on your purpose, target audience, what pages you need, how to get found in search results, plus all the essential backend bits and pieces. Download the workbook here!
Step 1: Identify Your Purpose & Goals
The purpose of your website, especially as a wellness professional, can vary greatly. Maybe you want people to come to your website to learn more about your practice and approach, to book an appointment, sign up for an online class, or read your blog. Your goals should be reflected in your site layout. An informational website is going to talk to visitors differently than a website where the goal is to make a sale.
Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Clients
At the end of the day, your website is for your potential clients, not for you. The kind of person you want to attract is going to make a difference in the tone you use and the aesthetic you choose. For example, a website that is designed for mothers looking for a health professional for her children is going to look different than one for single women in their early 20s. Ask yourself these questions to help identify the kind of person you want to attract with your website:
What is the typical age, gender, and income level of my target audience?
What problems do your clients have that your services solve?
What non-negotiables would you like your future clients to have in common? (Personality, needs, biggest struggles, problems, desired outcomes, etc.)
What values do you and your ideal client have in common?
Psst! You can find a whole section in the Website Content Planning Workbook on your ideal client! Fill out that section with the help of these questions for a well-rounded plan on who to target with your website.
Step 3: Formulate a Content Strategy
This step might sound a bit overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be that hard! This step is a two-fold mission:
Get clear on your branding and messaging. This is the first step you’ll need to take. Think of your branding and messaging as your guiding light. Effective brand messaging can communicate values, inspire, connect with your audience, and help set you apart from similar businesses. Everything you create for your website will align with your branding and messaging.
Organize and outline the content you'll have on your website. Next, list out the pages you want to include and what information you want to highlight on each page. Choose one main goal for each page of your website and answer these burning questions: Who? What? How? Why?
For example: the goal for an about page for a health & wellness educator may be to form a more personal connection with website visitors. To do so, you can make sure your about page answers these questions:
Who am I?
What makes me different from others?
How do I solve my client's problems?
How did I get to where I am today?
Why should you work with me?
The Website Content Planning Workbook will come in handy with these two steps as well.
8 Things To Consider When Picking Your Squarespace Template
Maybe you've completed your Website Content Planning Workbook and you've been searching high and low for your dream template, yet it seems like you just can't find the perfect fit. Don't give up! There are so many website templates out there, you'll be sure to find the right one eventually.
Whatever template you choose, make sure it checks all your boxes in these categories...
Compatibility with Website Goals:
You spent so much time nailing down your goals and the purpose of your website, so ensure the template you choose aligns with the kind of website you want to create. Many template creators will include information on who their products are the perfect fit for. So if you're not nodding your head along to what they're saying, then it might be time to look elsewhere.
Remember, you can always customize a template. Things like colors, fonts, and images are especially easy to change. But purpose affects the design process more than anything else and it will be hard to optimize a website that was designed with the goal of selling products for a brand whose purpose is to educate and inform (or vise versa).
Design and Aesthetics:
Select a template with a design aesthetic that matches your branding and target audience. This goes beyond colors — a template with a whimsical and bohemian feel may not be the best fit if your ideal clients are male athletes. Ask yourself, "what will look good when I add in my brand photos, fonts, and colors? What is going to help me catch the eye of my dream clients?"
Features and Functionality:
Based on the people you want to reach, the purpose of your website, and your content strategy, you're going to need certain features and functions on your website. For example, a health coach that wants to inform and educate potential clients is going to want features like a blog, newsletter sign-up, client testimonials, and an FAQ section.
As a health and wellness professional (indeed, for ANY professional), accessibility should be high on your list of requirements for a website template. It's important to note that some website platforms (Showit, for example) do not work with screen readers for the visually impaired, and therefore would not be accessible options. On the other hand, Squarespace works well with screen readers. We also recommend adding the Userway or Accessibe widget to your website for WCAG & ADA Compliance. These widgets are compatible with all of our Well Sites templates.
Psst! We've designed our Squarespace website templates specifically with the needs of health and wellness professionals in mind, with the pages you need and options for HIPAA-compliant scheduling. Check them out here!
Mobile-Friendly Design:
Have you ever visited a website where it was clear that the designer only thought about desktop viewers and not the way the website will look on your phone? Maybe you had to pinch, scroll way too much, or zoom in to find the information you were looking for. Chances are that you didn't put up with this for very long before closing out and finding a website that was optimized for mobile devices. You want that second kind of website, so make sure that the template you choose is responsive and provides a seamless experience on mobile devices.
Scalability:
Just as you would plan your forever home to accommodate your growing family, make sure the template you choose has the potential to expand as your business gets larger. Do you see yourself adding a blog? A shop for digital products? A members-only area? How about a course? Or even needing custom CSS for further customization in the future? Squarespace has the potential to do all that and more. Other website builders require plugins to accomplish each of these things which sometimes break or cause additional security issues.
Support and Updates:
Choosing a website template over custom design doesn't have to mean you're completely sacrificing all access to a web designer! Depending on how comfortable you feel customizing your site, pick a template with the right level of support.
For example, some designers bundle their templates with a course that walks you through step-by-step instructions on how to upload, edit, and optimize your website. Others will just deliver the template to your inbox and wish you the best. Depending on your budget and comfort levels, the amount of support can help you launch quicker and with more confidence.
Website builders are constantly getting better and better, which means templates need to be updated to stay relevant and compatible. Is the purchase of your website template going to be useful for only the current version of your website builder, or does the seller promise to make updates so your site stays up to date? Make sure you know the answer and are comfortable with it before purchasing!
User Reviews and Ratings:
Nothing will tell you what you need to know about a template before buying it like customer reviews will. What are people saying about the template seller overall? What are the biggest issues people are encountering? Are these dealbreakers for you? How does the seller respond to reviews?
Cost:
There's a website template out there for every budget. Just like with everything else, it's true that you get what you pay for. Some template designers offer payment plans so that the cost of the perfect website doesn't have to hit your bank account all at once. Set a budget and start exploring!
Squarespace Templates from Well Sites
Are you ready to plan your website, find the perfect template, and build your online dream home? Building websites for health and wellness professionals is our specialty, and we've made it easier than ever to get a website created by an experienced designer with website templates that look good on all devices, are perfect for any service provider, and have all the features you'll need as your business grows so you can continue winning clients over.
And the best part? Using a website template doesn't have to mean doing it all alone. Get access to our video Launch Lab, email support, and a 6-month Squarespace free trial (to give you ample time to get your website built and launched) when you use one of our templates. Explore the template shop by clicking here, and preview the templates available now below: