How to Create Your Squarespace Website Strategy
Stop guessing what your website needs and start making strategic decisions that actually work for your business
You know your website needs work, but every article gives you different advice.
Should you:
Focus on SEO?
Redesign your homepage?
Write better copy?
Add more features?
Update your color palette?
The internet is full of conflicting "solutions" and you have no idea where to start.
Here's the thing.
Most business owners are so focused on the visual aspects of their website that they never step back to think strategically about what their site actually needs to accomplish.
So what does "website strategy" actually mean? And why does it require a different approach than most people take?
Website strategy isn't about choosing better fonts or rearranging your homepage sections. It's about creating a clear plan for how every element of your site serves your business goals – and more importantly, serves your visitors' needs in a way that actually converts them.
The problem? Most business owners are so focused on tactical fixes that they never develop the strategic foundation that makes those tactics actually work.
Table of Contents -
Why designing on vibes fails any website design strategy
That gorgeous template caught your eye for a reason. The color palette speaks to you. The layout feels fresh and modern. So you customize it with your content, launch it, and... nothing.
Here's the problem: generic templates aren't designed for how people will use YOUR specific site. They're designed to look good in template galleries, not to serve your actual business goals.
When you choose based on what looks appealing, you're optimizing for the wrong thing entirely. Visual appeal has almost nothing to do with functional effectiveness for your business needs.
Most template-based designs prioritize image-heavy layouts over the strategic copy placement that actually converts visitors. For service providers and coaches, your words do the heavy lifting in converting browsers into buyers.
"Going with what looks good" completely ignores whether your site can do its actual job. It's like hiring someone for your business based purely on their outfit instead of their ability to help customers.
Template thinking keeps you stuck in surface-level decisions instead of addressing the strategic gaps that actually prevent conversions. Your massage therapy practice has completely different conversion needs than a business coach's site.
Template thinking keeps you stuck in surface-level decisions
When you design on vibes alone, you end up with a website design strategy that might win design awards but won't book clients.
What the hell is website strategy anyway?
"Strategy" has lost all meaning because every marketer slaps it onto everything.
"Content strategy," "social strategy," "launch strategy" – the word gets thrown around so much it basically means nothing anymore.
For websites, strategy means something specific:
figuring out the exact "job" of your website before you build or redesign it.
Most business owners are so close to their own business that they can't see what job their website actually needs to do.
Imagine you hire the most friendly, outgoing person to work at your coffee shop. They show up eager to help, but you never tell them what their job is. They can't work the register because they don't know your system. They can't make recommendations because they don't know your menu.
That enthusiastic employee will fail – not because they're incapable, but because you never defined their role.
Your website strategy without clear direction is the confused coffee shop employee. It might be beautifully designed and technically functional, but if you haven't defined its job, it can't perform.
Strategic website planning requires stepping back from day-to-day business details.
Most service providers and coaches are so deep in serving clients that they can't see their website from their visitors' perspective.
That's why strategic website planning often benefits from an outside perspective – someone who can see the gaps you're too close to notice. This is exactly what happens during a Scouting Session – that 90-minute deep dive where we map out how your website could actually power your marketing and business systems instead of just existing as a pretty brochure.
Defining your website purpose (the job your site needs to do)
Most business owners think their website's job is to "look professional" or "explain what I do." Those aren't jobs – those are basic requirements.
Your website purpose needs to be much more specific. For service providers and coaches, potential website jobs include:
Establish authority and expertise that pre-qualifies you in visitors' minds
Generate discovery calls or consultation bookings with qualified prospects
Drive course or program enrollments for your signature offerings
Build an email list of engaged potential clients
Attract appointment bookings for your services
Bring in qualified traffic through search engines
Sell digital products or resources that support your main business
Business owners want their website to do ALL of these things equally well. That's where strategic thinking becomes crucial.
You absolutely must identify your #1 primary goal.
Everything else becomes secondary support. This feels like limiting your options, but clarity about your primary website purpose makes your site exponentially more effective.
For example, if your primary job is booking discovery calls, then email signups become a secondary conversion path for visitors who aren't ready to book yet. Blog posts establish authority that supports the booking goal. The most sophisticated websites go beyond basic email collection to gather insights about visitor preferences and needs, creating increasingly personalized experiences that convert better over time.
But if you treat email signups, blog traffic, and discovery calls as equally important, you end up with a confused site that doesn't excel at any of them.
Making these strategic design decisions requires:
understanding visitor psychology,
conversion principles,
and how different website elements work together.
Most business owners don't have this background, which is why they end up with sites that try to do everything and accomplish nothing.
Website redesign strategy that actually guides visitors
Most small business owners see their website as a brochure – a place to display information about their services and hope people get interested enough to reach out.
That approach assumes visitors will do the work of figuring out whether you're right for them. But that's not how people actually behave online.
Strategic websites guide visitors through a purposeful journey toward conversion.
Creating that journey requires understanding visitor psychology that most business owners don't have time to develop.
Visitors don't move through neat, predictable stages. People are messy and nonlinear in their decision-making. But they do need specific information before they'll hire you, book with you, or buy from you.
For service providers, people need to understand what you do, how you help, why you're different, and whether you're right for their specific situation before they'll contact you.
Your website redesign strategy needs to ensure visitors get the right information in a logical flow that builds confidence rather than creating confusion.
The key is creating clear site journeys that prevent "website loops" – those frustrating visitor experiences where someone clicks around randomly, never finding what they need, and eventually leaves confused.
Strategic site journeys have clear entry points, logical next steps, and obvious conversion opportunities.
Every page answers a visitor's questions while naturally leading them toward the next relevant page.
Every page answers a question while naturally leading you forward.
Designing these journeys requires expertise in user experience, conversion psychology, and strategic planning that most business owners don't have. It's not just about good intentions; it's about understanding how to translate those intentions into a website structure that actually works.
This kind of strategic mapping is what happens during a Scouting Session – we create a clear roadmap for how to create a frictionless experience from first click to loyal client.
Strategic clarity about your site's role changes everything else that follows, including how you approach specific conversion tactics and how to use visitor insights strategically to continuously improve your site's effectiveness.
Website strategy transforms your site from a pretty expense into a profit-generating business asset.
But developing that strategy requires stepping back from day-to-day business operations and looking at your website through a completely different lens.
Most business owners recognize they need this strategic foundation but don't have the expertise or outside perspective to develop it effectively on their own.
The difference between strategic and random website decisions compounds over time:
Strategic thinking creates accelerating business growth.
Random decisions create ongoing frustration with lackluster results.
That's where strategic expertise becomes invaluable.
