Make Your Website a Luxury Experience
If you’re treating your website as a place to list your services and a contact form, you’re leaving some prime real estate untouched. Your website is more than a map of your offers. It can - and should - be a luxury experience for your clients.
Making your website a luxury experience for your clients doesn’t mean you’re paying through the nose for a virtual red carpet and hot toddies on tap. A luxury experience is defined by a few key elements that anyone can intentionally create, even with a VW bug budget! No need for Teslas here!
Take my VW bug, for example
To me, my VW bug is a luxury experience - even if some wouldn’t necessarily agree. Why? Why would I feel more luxurious driving my yellow bug than I would in a Tesla that unlocks and starts with the literal touch of my finger?
Because, it’s not about what the car can do - it’s about how it makes me feel, how it reflects who I am, and how it has everything I need and nothing I don’t.
Getting into my bug every morning is a luxury experience because its personality is palpable and reminds me of my own. It makes me feel proud, joyful, and happy because it reflects those very values I live by. It also has everything I need and nothing superfluous that I don’t. It’s perfect and perfect for me - that’s what makes it luxury.
You can easily give your clients the red-carpet experience
Luxury experiences aren’t about the money you spend on extra amenities and gifts. Luxury, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It’s about using your brand and website to craft an experience your ideal client craves to step into because it helps them live the way they want to live and feel the way they want to feel.
With a strong, identity-led brand and well-designed website you can give your dream clients that high-end experience even as they scroll through your website on their phone while filling up their tank at the gas station.
How? A luxury experience is defined by these key elements - a well-crafted and immersive story, high-quality value, mirror core values and identity, and next-level ease of use.
Let’s look at how each of these elements can take center stage on your website, making it luxurious to your dream client!
First, a well-crafted, immersive story
Creating an immersive story isn’t about twists and turns and gripping hooks. It’s about sharing your own story as it relates to your client.
Have you ever scrolled through a website and just felt like the content droned on and on and on about, well, themselves? A well-crafted story simply reflects the highlights of your experience that connects with your ideal audience’s story in some way.
You can showcase your story on every page of your website, but two prime places to do so are your services page and your about page.
Services page
Make sure your services page doesn’t just list your services. Instead, detail your audience’s pain points and how you uniquely understand and support them through their time of transition and growth. How do they know this service is for them? How will they know if it’s not? What results will they see at the end of their journey with you?
About page
A story-focused about page isn’t all about you. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but your client should see themselves reflected in your story. How? Speak from an understanding of where they are and where they want to be.
Here are a few questions to guide you as you craft your story:
What is your ideal client struggling with the most right now?
What solutions have they tried so far? What worked and what hasn’t?
Why now? Why are they ready to find a solution that works for good right now?
Where have you been in your own journey, and what motivated you?
What points of your story relate to theirs?
How does your experience and knowledge support them in their journey?
How do you help them get from one stepping stone to the next?
High-quality value
A high-quality website doesn’t just look good, it functions well. This should actually go unnoticed by your client. A high-quality website should:
Be optimized for mobile
Have content that is optimized for search engines
Have a readily accessible contact form and contact details
And feature distinct and intuitive navigation
Mirrored core values and identity
Your website and brand should feel like an extension of your personality, attracting the types of clients who also want to feel and live that way!
When your brand starts with your values and a deep connection to your own identity, then all you create from that foundation will be in alignment for you personally, allowing you to do work you love, in ways you love, infusing all you do with clarity, integrity, and magic. I call this identity-led branding, and this is the Dawn & Delight approach to the brand design process.
If you’ve never dug into your deepest values to discover the heart of your ‘Why,’ then you only know a fraction of your own story! I love and use this exercise to help my clients identify their core values and identity.
Next-level ease of use
Your website should be incredibly easy to navigate. It shouldn’t be cluttered with links, pop-ups, opt-ins, and conflicting calls to action. All of these things can distract your user from taking proper action and can even confuse them if they aren’t positioned strategically.
Here are some tips for making your website function like a straightforward map to your most irresistible offer:
Include one clear call to action on your homepage, usually a link to your service sales page or services page.
Your sales page and services page should feature one link to direct their next step. Do they complete an application, book a consultation, or book and pay on the spot? Feature one, consistently.
Your opt-in should not pop up on every page and it should not be sprinkled like confetti everywhere (even though it’s awesome, I know). Instead, feature it in the middle of your homepage, in your footer, at the bottom of your blog posts, and on your about page.
Your header and footers are powerful tools - use them wisely! Your header should feature a clear and distinct navigation bar, and your footer can contain remaining links with a clear call to action either directing to your opt-in or services page.
Feature one path for moving forward on the contact page - what is the single best way to get in touch with you? If possible, I recommend making this next step the same as your call to action featured on your sales and services pages.
Are you excited to make your brand and website a luxurious experience for your dream clients? Learn more about the Dawn Approach, a unique, identity-led brand and website design process for service providers, coaches and therapists.
