Welcome to another entry in my series The Craft. Today I want to talk about a site that makes me extremely proud every time I think about it. I find myself showing it off to my industry friends, my non-industry friends and to anybody who will listen really. The site is Breathemindandbody.com and it has a lot going on. The founders are two lovely ladies who are inspirational and passionate and were a pleasure to work with. If you ever meet Jen or Chelsey you are in for a treat.
The site came to us with a design already done that was pretty far along but wasn’t fully realized and the clients weren’t exactly looking to keep it. Our creative director Will also had to put extra thought, and heart, into the design as we needed to create an atmosphere that was clean and inviting but still was easy for users to find what they need and make the purchases they are looking for. The site was also going to need to integrate with a third-party system, Mind Body, to manage their clients and another third party system, Mail Chimp, to collect emails from potential customers.
Let's talk about design. Odds are if you are reading this you are a local business looking for a web designer in Dallas. Maybe you are even a brick and mortar operation like Breathe. I would encourage you to look at what the Breathe website accomplishes. The navigation includes all the information a user needs, and also calls to action. If you hover over “services” in the navigation not only do you see a list of services but also a CTA to book a session right away. This works great for local businesses whose visitors might be looking to act fast. I would also encourage you to take a look at some of the services pages like this one for Halotherapy. The page is visually pleasing, presents the necessary information and a CTA above the fold, and then offers a bit of a deeper dive on the topic below the fold. Returning clients who just want to get to that “Book your session” button don’t have to sift through anything and uninitiated potential clients have all the information they need. Don’t forget to check out the Team Page to see a bit of cool flair.
All those CTAs that help users “book a session” are powered by a third-party service called Mind Body. If you are in the fitness space you have probably heard of them or used them. I had never heard of them when we started this project, but in my experience, you don’t need experience with a particular API or Service to make it work well. Working with these third party services is a skill that any good agency developer (or in my case support manager) has picked up. If you are concerned about how you will get a third-party service connected to your site, let us know, I would love to take a look at it and explore it with you.
Jen and Chelsey had high standards for their site, and if you are opening/running a brick and mortar business in a competitive city like Dallas I hope you do too. If your website is going to be the first point of contact your customers have with your business let's learn from Breathe and make it eye-catching, informative, easily navigable and integrate it with the services your clients need. There was a lot of love put into this site and I hope it shows.
We also had the opportunity to help with the social media presence leading up to the launch of the studio. A launch that went well. If you have the chance I would highly recommend swinging by their studio and checking it out for yourself. If you want to check out how we can help your local business swing by the contact page and let me know what we can help you with.