Not every person in the world knows what a sales funnel is. But being a business owner, you must’ve heard this term before. It doesn’t mean you know how it works (if you do, that’s a market advantage!), but that’s not an issue. You are not the one who should be tasked to make it work unless you are a one-person-company. Even if you have a small team in your company, there is surely at least one person who knows how to deal with the sales funnel.

However, this is not what we’re going to discuss in this article. As you might’ve noticed in the title, this article is going to talk about web design and the sales funnel. In this case, your sales funnel foundation is laid during the development of your website. That’s right, if you don’t have a website yet, it might ironically enough be to your benefit. The reason is because you won’t have to re-do the whole thing to make the sales funnel work properly. But, regardless, you still have to find a reliable, reputable web design agency to create your company’s website. 

Now, there is one thing you must ensure before hiring a design agency. You see, not every web design company can create websites that sell. Many designers can easily create stunning graphics and visual concepts for websites. But contrary to popular belief,  these things won’t make your site an effective sales tool. It would help to find a web design agency that understands what a sales funnel is and how to incorporate it into your website’s design. And it will also be quite helpful for you personally if you understand at the very least the basics of this matter. 

A sales funnel is not composed of a single element. It’s a complex web of elements and abstract concepts that ultimately lead your customers to a buying decision. The back-end and front-end of a website, the value ladder, and the client journey are all integral parts of your sales funnel. 

But, if you research the term online, it may get fairly confusing fairly quickly because there are many different interpretations of what precisely constitutes the sales funnel. However, since we’re talking about it in terms of web design, your sales funnel consists of a set of steps that your site visitor takes from the view on the first page to the actual purchase. 

The endgame of each sales funnel is conversion. A lot of sales funnels are created with multiple inbuilt levels of conversion. Comprehension of the ways of conversion maximization is crucial to sales funnels. And, when you create a website for your company, proper and thoughtful web design is crucial for this whole process. 

That is, during the web design process, your web design agency will have to take care of several particular aspects of your site. Among other website design aspects, this includes traffic, blog post or landing page, email opt-in, and a new higher offer. We are going to review these and a few other important aspects below. 

Traffic may come from a wide range of different sources. Hiring a web design agency will provide you with specialists that understand this aspect of website design. They will make certain that your site’s design will attract traffic. Drawing traffic to the website, no matter the type, is the very first step in any sales funnel. And, naturally, this part of the funnel is the widest one. 

The moment a user lands on one of your web pages (it could be a blog article, product page,  or landing page), they get access to your content – which is free and available to everyone – and the opportunity to digest it. It is vital from the web design perspective that your website visitors must be able to find whatever they are looking for without any difficulties. Also, your site should have a distinguishable and appealing call-to-action (CTA) – most web designers place prominent buttons with large fonts that are coherent with the website’s overall appearance and design concept.

Many sales funnels use CTAs to get a user’s email address and give something in exchange. Things like a shop coupon, downloadable e-book, or free video lesson are often provided as bonus offers for a subscription. It doesn’t matter what kind of offer it is, the ultimate goal at this point is to get a person’s email address. While not as many people are going to do this as those that will land on your website, and the funnel will start to recede at this point, it’s still a valuable tool for getting contact data from your prospects. 

The upsell stage sometimes referred to as a tripwire, is the first actual step for you out of the “free stuff” realm and into the “paid” realm. Don’t forget, it’s a sales funnel, and it has to help you sell stuff. Usually, the upsell is shown on the confirmation page after the user opts-in. There, it displays a limited-time offer, where the user can get a high-value deal at a very cheap cost. Sometimes this also involves a countdown timer (as a psychological tool to prompt the person to make a purchase). From a conversion point of view, the goal at this stage is visitor conversion into customers via providing an offer for them to buy something that is normally sold for $59, but they can get it for $5 if they make the purchase now. 

One thing about sales funnels that you must understand as a business owner is that they work only when the content present in them is high-quality. If a funnel doesn’t convert new customers or breaks down at some point in the middle, this could easily mean that the position is wrong or content quality is poor. 

Sales funnels are a vital digital marketing element. Web design is also tightly connected to digital marketing because company websites are the main source of traffic, conversions, and sales for their respective owners. That is, website design is not simply about creating good-looking sites, but rather about creating sites that meet the needs of web designers’ customers (that being you) and their target audience (your audience). 

That brings us to the very last point of this extensive article: your web design agency shouldn’t be just a design contractor; it should be your ‘partner in crime.’ That is, you should be able to discuss your needs with the agency’s team and find the most optimal solutions for your current problems. Your site is not just a business card – it is a powerful tool that you can use for marketing, sales, brand recognition, and many other things that will help your business flourish.