You’ve seen us talk a lot about StoryBrand. What can we say, we love StoryBrand. Especially when it comes to websites. Your website is often the first impression a customer has about your business. We’ve put together a guide explaining what makes a StoryBrand website.

There are several building blocks that make a website a StoryBrand website.

• The Header/Hero section with a clear call to action
• The Stakes
• The Value Proposition
• The Guide
• The Plan
• The Explanatory Paragraph
• The Video (optional)
• The Price Choices
• A Transitional Call to Action
• The Junk Drawer

These sections are written and designed based on a brand’s BrandScript. We’ll give you a few tips on each section.

The Header/Hero section

This section is the first thing visitors of the website see, and thus the most important part of your website as it is intended to grab your customers attention. You’ll want to make sure it passes the “Grunt Test”. Within a matter of 2-3 seconds, can they answer these three questions:

1. What do you offer?
2. How will it make my life better?
3. What do I need to do to buy it? 

It’s also important to include a direct call-to-action in this section, in the header itself and right below the tagline on the hero section. 

The Stakes

This section should describe what happens if your customer doesn’t do business with you. The steaks should remind the customers of negative scenarios that may arise if they don’t purchase your product or service. 

The Value Proposition

This is the perfect time to position your product/service as a solution to your customer’s problem. It’s called the “value proposition” – relating the solution (your product/service) to the problem that your customer is facing.

The Guide

In this section, you should highlight two things – empathy and authority. Empathy is a way to connect with your potential customer, letting them know that you understand their problem. Showing them that you can solve their problem is authority. Some examples of showing authority might include stating how long you’ve been in business or how many happy customers you’ve served. This is essentially the only time you would talk about yourself.

The Plan

The plan section is best for letting your customers know just how easy it will be to do business with you. You want to encourage customers and remind them that doing business with you is easy, by breaking it into three simple steps:

1. Get a quote or Browse our products (or whatever fits)
2. Choose your service or pick your color (whatever fits here)
3. Enjoy your product! (or other statement about how their life will be better after making a purchase)

The Explanatory Paragraph

This paragraph should offer more details about your brand’s story. It serves as information about your business and can link to a more detailed “about” page but it is also used for search engine optimization purposes. We need to have a few paragraphs on the page that we can utilize to use keywords and phrases that may help being found by search engines. 

The Price Choices

If you have set prices, it is a good idea to display package options on your homepage to let the customer decide if your product/service is a good fit for their needs. 

Transitional Call to Action

This may be one of the most important tools on your website. This is a section where we should offer some type of free resource that is related to your product or service. Sometimes customers are not quite ready to commit to a purchase but are still interested in the topic. How do you turn leads into paying customers?

Here is an example: If you are a carpet cleaning business, you may want to share some general information about how to protect your carpet from stains, or maybe 5 unlikely hacks to remove stubborn stains from carpets. You want to peak the interest of your customers and offer a PDF for download. This is the first step of a sales funnel. The concept is this: 

1. Viewers enter their email address to download a free PDF
2. They are now in your SALES FUNNEL
3. They receive an email with the PDF. The email will include another call to action. 
4. If they don’t take action, they will receive another follow up email reminding them how much your service is going to improve their life. 
5. You can nurture those leads with emails for quite some time, you can even subscribe them to your newsletters where you promote sales and other info. 
6. They may not purchase from you right away, but this way you provide ample opportunities to keep their attention and to make a purchase down the road! 

The Junk Drawer

I’m sure we’re all familiar with that one drawer at home where all the odds and ends are thrown into. The footer of your website is like that drawer – the junk drawer. Here you’ll include things like your blog, employment opportunities or any miscellaneous links.

Not only do you want a beautiful website, but it also needs to be a powerful tool that can convert leads into sales for your business. This is why you need a StoryBrand website. If you’re ready to take the first step to a successful website, schedule a free consultation with us today. 

Here’s to your website’s success.