Starting an online wellness business can be really exciting, but also overwhelming. There are so many moving parts, you might not know where to start. To help with all the scatterbrain, let’s focus on the very first thing you start with: your wellness website. Until you get your website off the ground, everything else can wait. Your website is going to be your storefront, and without that, you are really limiting your possibilities.

How wellness websites fit into marketing strategies

With all of your marketing initiatives, your wellness website will be the central hub. This will be the one-stop for everything you and your business. People need a landing spot of where to go to get your content, learn about you, buy your products or contact you.

Your website represents you and your business. This makes it extremely important for everything to be strategic and effective. Here, I have put together 5 things you need to build an effective wellness website. Without these things, you will not be able to reach your full potential in your marketing strategy.

What you need for an effective wellness website:

1. Good design and brand consistency

Since your website is representing you and your business, it must be consistent with everything else. This includes the design. Users prefer consistency with brands. If they see one ad of yours that is bright and colorful and then see that your Instagram is very dull and your website is really stiff, it will not create trust with the person. Consistency helps a person develop trust and build their own brand. By building a brand, you will be giving your audience an experience that is memorable and trustworthy. These are both very important pieces for making sales, building relationships or gaining clients.

Color scheme

This is the most basic form of branding to keep consistent. Make a hard decision on what your brand colors will be to the exact hexadecimal. You want to do this so you don’t waiver or become confused which colors to use when branding your content and products. You must commit to these colors and stay consistent with using them.

Photos

Photos make all the difference when building wellness websites. When I am doing a website design or redesign, I often get my client to book a session with a photographer to get high-quality images of themselves I can use on various marketing materials, but also for a more personal and beautiful wellness website.

Typography

What kind of fonts do you use? Are they girly scripts or strong bolds? Wellness websites can use all styles of fonts from fun for foodies to strong for fitness professionals. If you don’t have a website designer, you have to figure this out on your own and really nail it down to be able to stay consistent on all of your marketing materials. To stand out, you want to use fonts that aren’t as standard that everyone is using. I personally like to use dafont.com to download free fonts to your computer and use in your designs.

2. Wellness websites need strong about pages

No website is complete without an about page. These pages often are one of the most visited pages on a website. For a lot of wellness websites, what they are selling or providing has a lot to do with the person providing it- you. This means you must give them a chance to meet you on your website.

Your story

Your story is a way to truly connect with people. Some people might feel their story isn’t significant, but I can promise you that it is. You must write up your story and publish it to your about page where everyone will be going to learn more about you.

In your story, you can start with why you’re doing what you are doing. Maybe it is a struggle you had that you overcame, and now you want to share the solution with the world. Whatever your story is, make sure you are sharing it.

Picture of you

Along with your story, people like to connect with a face. Make sure your about page has a nice picture of you. I recommend a professional photo if possible. If not, the nicest photo you have will work. If you want to make a really nice about page, videos are really nice here. They let your audience hear your voice, see how you interact and get a feel for your energy. The stronger the connection with your audience, the better they will feel about taking your advice or buying your products or services.

3. Easy ways to contact you

As more and more are being expected of us, we are looking for the most convenient ways to get done what we need to get done. This means short attention spans and most of the time, people are unwilling to go out of their way to find a way to contact you. If it isn’t simple, there is a good chance they will move on to something else. 

Places for contact forms

It is good practice to have a simple way to contact you on every page. This can be easily done by putting contact info on top menus on top of the navigation bar on your website. Some themes already offer this feature. If your theme doesn’t, you can find many plugins that will add this feature to your website.

Along with a top menu, you can always make it even easier and have a floating menu. These are small menus that float over your website to the side that make it easy for people to take action no matter where they are on your website. You can choose to have these float on the sides or the top or bottom of your website.

You also want to be sure you have a simple contact page. This is most people’s go-to method, as you can often rely on a website to always have fun. Be sure to have the contact form high up with your other contact information. Just always keep in mind to make it easy as possible for the user to take action.

4. Quality content

Content is what you’ll be providing to your audience to get them to come to your website, stay on your website and trust you. Content is extremely powerful and should be intentional and with a strategy. If you mindlessly create content, it could happen to work out very well, but it could also leave you working really hard with very little results – which can be super frustrating! So you want to make sure you have a content plan.

If you are wanting to rank in search engines (which I highly recommend making a goal), you will need an even more sophisticated strategy. Search engine optimization plans don’t have to be complicated, but without one, you’re not likely to rank.

Blog Posts

One basic form of content is by having a blog. Every website should have one. Your blog should create valuable and unique content. This will bring your audience more value, but also help you rank in search engines. Ranking in search engines is a great, free source of high-quality traffic.

Video and Voice

These forms of content can be very effective when done well. If you are a professional that offers personal services, this is especially important for you. When people can hear your voice and see you, they can get a better idea of who you are and make a real connection.

I talk about trust a lot. Because it’s everything. This is where trust is built much faster. If people are only reading what you have to say, it will be a lot longer before they build the kind of trust and understanding of you that they could build after seeing a video or hearing a podcast of your voice.

These types of content are great for your website content pages, your blog, social media and any other channel you push content through.

Content pages

Along with your blog, your website will have your standard pillar content. This content is separate from your blog posts. You want to provide content on your products or services that people can refer to. Be sure these are optimized for search engines to give them a chance to rank. If they’re successful at ranking high in search engines, you could be bringing in a lot of quality traffic of people wanting or needing your products or services.

5. Testimonials

For wellness websites, testimonials can do a great job at inspiring people to take action. When you are offering something to change someone’s life, it is important that they know it works. It’s hard to know that just from reading a bunch of marketing material. Most people are aware of this, which makes them turn to testimonials and reviews before committing to a decision.

Where you can put them

If you have enough of them, testimonials should have their own home. A page dedicated to success stories is great for wellness websites! Other places you can put them is at the bottom of your about page and contact page to encourage people to take action. If you put them on other pages, be sure they are in a slider or some sort of framed content that doesn’t take up too much room on the page. You can also sprinkle one-liner quotes throughout your website to include social proof in various places.

Bonus tip for wellness websites:

Make it user-friendly. I couldn’t let you leave this post without adding this tip. This is an important one. If your website is difficult to navigate, it can be a real pain for users to check out what you have to offer. This will cause them to leave your wellness website right away. With a good template and website builder to guide you, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about this. Click through your website on desktop and mobile to try out how easy it is to use. If some links are too small or the website isn’t responding to different devices, be sure to address this before launching or doing anything else.

Help with wellness websites

If you still feel lost with where to start on your wellness website, try to take one step at a time and create a plan. For any questions or problems, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I can provide a website audit or training to help you reach your goals with your website.