Problems

My web design and branding firm's existing website did not showcase our work effectively and didn't adequately explain who we are and what problems we solve. The site was created with a premium Shopify template and didn't have enough flexibility to really personalize and scale the design. When I first created the site, I was short on time and needed to get something up as quickly as possible. I was also very focused on creating Shopify/e-commerce websites at the time, but have since pivoted to designing and building sites for professional service businesses in Webflow.

I was also using orange as an accent color (paired with our core black and white brand colors) and determined I wanted to go with more subtle colors moving forward.

Solutions

First, I worked on establishing a new color palette for our branding. I knew I wanted to keep the black color and our primary logo consistent and still wanted to use green as an accent color as it represents growth, wealth, and forward motion ("go", which paired with the spacey/rocket imagery really works). Inspired by Klaviyo's recent rebrand, I decided to pair the black with more of an off-white/beige color and use a couple different shades of green, including one that was a lot softer (more of a sage color).

I've seen a lot of design agency websites that are trying too hard to flex design muscles and go overboard with animations at the expense of being approachable and customer-focused. I wanted Mercury Jane's new site to of course be aesthetically-pleasing and well-designed, but ultimately show off our great clients and the results they're seeing after working with us. I feel like we achieved the right balance!

I also spent a lot of time on our positioning to emphasize our new focus on professional service businesses and tweaks to our services (we were originally offering email marketing services alongside Shopify store setup, design, and development, but now were more focused on SEO alongside Webflow design and development).

I created a user persona for our ideal client, a partner at a prestigious law firm, to really think through the pain points they would most identify with and utilized the StoryBrand framework for the home page layout and messaging.

I knew that in addition to reworking our positioning and overall messaging, I also needed to focus on showing our work, results, process, and expertise. I created a Work page that allows users to filter by type of project (marketing website, e-commerce, or branding) and industry. I also started a blog to enhance our SEO, provide more insight into our processes and benefits of working with us, and showcase our expertise.

Results

We just launched the new site at the beginning of September 2022, but are already starting to boost our local search rankings ("web designer in Lake Mary/Mount Dora") and getting more qualified leads.