Creating a Website Planning Template: Fantastic Expert Tips

Wonderful World of Websites | Website Wonder Woman

When it comes to creating a website, having a website planning template can be a lifesaver. So many people tell me that they are ready to get a website, but have no clue what they want the website for or what they want it to do. This then leads to not only total confusion, but also not making the website work for you in your business - it's just basically sitting there doing nothing as the information on there is pointless to anyone!

A laptop, pen and notepad on a desk, essential for creating a website planning template

How to create a website planning template

So, just how do you create a website planning template for your business? If you are anything like me, you hate planning! But even I can see the difference an hour or two of planning can make in the long run - hours worth of time (and money!) saved and a goal to work towards.

When I run my website planning masterclasses, we go through 5 fantastic expert steps to create a website planning template, they are:

Step 1: Get clear on your business

If you are not clear on your business or your reasoning behind wanting a website, then your website visitors won't be either. Have you ever been on those websites and as soon as you land on them, you have no clue what they are about, what they even do, or more importantly, what they want YOU to do? So what do you do? Click off and find another website, which is one thing we don't want people to do on your site!

Which is why, if you are in the early stages of your business, I sometimes don't even recommend you have a website, as 6 months to a year down the line, your business could have evolved into something completely different. During that time, you will also not only have refined your services and who you want to work with, but you may have also discovered the personality in your business and created a whole new brand.

So things you need are:

Who you are and what you do (keep this to one main sentence and a short paragraph)
What you offer (products and services)
Who you work with (ideal client)
Branding (your business personality, logo, fonts and colours)

Website planning starts with a mission, seen here as a purple target with an arrow in the centre on a laptop screen

Step 2: Your website mission

Why do you want a website, and what do you want people to do on it? This will reflect in your website so it's something that you need to get really clear on when creating your website planning template.

So, firstly, why do you want a website? Having a website for having a website sake won't do much for your business, you need to figure out where it sits in your overall business and marketing plan. What do you need it to do for you?

Make sales
Build trust
Grow relationships
Offer information
Run online courses

Or it could be something totally different!

Then you can start to put together what you want people to do on your website - what is your website's mission? To figure out your website's mission, think about the process of how people buy from you currently. Do they book a call, do they just buy from your shop, or do you need to nurture them on your mailing list first?

Knowing this, you can then transfer this onto your website so that they go through the same process.

Step 3: The customer journey

So once you are clear about your business, why you need a website, and what your website's mission is, then you want people to achieve that when they land on your website.

This is the journey you take your visitors through from the moment they land on your website, right through to achieving your website's mission.

You need to keep asking yourself what do they need to know now and what they need to know next, and then give them that! It's a lot of second-guessing, which is why you need to be really clear on your ideal client.

So when creating your website planning template, you need to straight away offer them your website mission, so a call to action to book a call, visit your shop, etc. Now if they've only just come across you then it's highly unlikely they are going to straight away want to book a call in with you, they may want to know a bit more about your business, about you, what services you offer, view a few testimonials or sign up to a mailing list.

So this is the order you would lay out your pages, anticipating what they would want to know or do next before they feel ready to achieve your website's mission.

website planning needs reasearch illustrated here with an open book and a lightbulb, cog wheels, magnifying glass and pencil popping out of it

Step 4: Research, research, research

As well as researching all the above to create your website planning template, you will also need to research other websites and layouts.

If you were to get married or do home improvements, one of the things you would do is look for inspiration! It's the same with websites. To find out what you like and don't like, you need to see what's already out there.

So, put your website critic hat on and start looking at other websites and making notes. Whether that's a website in a similar industry to you or totally different.

What pages do they have?
How are their pages laid out?
What's included on their pages - portfolios, galleries, etc.?
What attracts you to certain sites?
How easy are they to use and how?
What do you really like and dislike?
What could you do better?

Step 5: Website structure

Now it's time to put it all together to complete your website planning template. To structure out your website, you need:

A list of the pages you want on the site and how people will get to them (main menu, footer, from other pages)
What do you want on those pages (images, text, layout ideas)
Also, make a note of what functionality you will need on the website (such as e-commerce or booking calendars)

I'd suggest creating a folder on your computer entitled with your website name, then within that, folders for each page. In each of these folders, put not only documents of text and content, but also images you like, as well as basic drawings of how each page will be laid out.

TOP TIP: You can create your design of your pages in Canva (I wouldn't recommend publishing with them as their sites are quite basic) but when it comes to creating your website or getting someone else to do it for you, you have your complete website planning template and a Canva file of your website vision!

But that's not it! If you want more help creating your website planning template then you can access the first 7 days of 60 Days to Website Success for FREE, that also includes a workbok that covers all the steps above!

Access the Free Course

Help ChatGPT find your website a laptop with a megaphone coming out of the screen

I know that sounds ridiculous, but spend a few minutes browsing small-business websites, and you will see why it matters.

For example: A homepage might say: "Helping you achieve your goals." That's great, but what goals? Who are you helping?

A web visitor might work it out from the logo, photographs and navigation. Machines have less tolerance for ambiguity.

Compare that with: " We provide commercial cleaning services to offices, schools and healthcare businesses across South Wales."

Suddenly, there's much less to decipher. Who are you? A commercial cleaning company. What do you do? Clean commercial premises. Who for? Offices, schools, and healthcare businesses. Where? South Wales.

Clear website copy isn't unsophisticated copy. If you want to help ChatGPT find your website, clarity can be a big advantage.

3. Create Proper Pages for Your Main Services

One mistake I regularly see is businesses trying to squeeze everything they offer onto one service page. Imagine a building company offering extensions, loft conversions, kitchen renovations, and garage conversions. Giving each important service its own useful page creates far more context than mentioning all four in a short bullet list.

A strong page can explain:

what the service involves;
who it is suitable for;
common questions customers ask;
the process;
relevant experience;
examples of completed work;
geographical areas covered.

This is not only useful information for potential customers, but also useful for conventional SEO and will help ChatGPT find your website and understand exactly what your business provides.

However, a word of caution. The important word here is useful. Creating 30 near-identical pages simply to target 30 slightly different phrases isn't the answer. Websites are ultimately for people, so create pages because you have something worthwhile to tell them.

4. Answer the Questions Your Customers Really Ask

3d speech bubbles with Q & A in them for Help ChatGPT find your website blog

This is where good blog content becomes particularly valuable and can help ChatGPT find your website.

People often interact with ChatGPT and other AI bots in a conversational way. Rather than searching for something like: "loft conversion Cardiff", they might ask "Do I need planning permission for a loft conversion in Cardiff?" or "Is my house suitable for a loft conversion?". You get my drift.

Think about the questions customers ask you on the phone, in emails, during quotations, or at meetings. Those questions can become extremely useful website content. And don't limit yourself to just obvious FAQs. Some of the best content comes from the questions that require actual expertise to answer: comparisons, costs, pitfalls, misconceptions, alternatives, and situations where one option is better than another. That is where your knowledge becomes valuable. Put that into blogs, and it will help ChatGPT find your website.

5. Don't Just Say You're an Expert - Demonstrate It

Almost every business website claims some variation of: "We pride ourselves on providing a professional, high-quality service." The problem is that anybody can write it. Evidence is much more persuasive.

If you want to help ChatGPT find your website and understand why your business might be a credible source, then you need to give your website substance.

That could include detailed case studies, named authors with relevant experience, customer reviews, original photographs, accreditations, qualifications, awards, research or data you've produced, and genuinely knowledgeable articles/blogs.

A case study saying: We recently completed this project for a client in Newport", isn't particularly informative. Explain the problem. What did the customer need? What did you recommend? Why? What difficulties arose? How did you solve them? What was the outcome?

That is useful information for humans, and it gives search and AI systems considerably more context about your real-world expertise.

6. Make Your Location Clear

Naturally, this is particularly important for local businesses.

If you are an electrician serving customers across South Wales, make that clear on your website. Your address, service areas, and contact details shouldn't require detective work to find.

Your About and Contact pages can reinforce where you are based, while individual service pages can naturally explain areas you cover. However, avoid creating dozens of thin location pages where the only difference is swapping one town name for another, like "Electrician Newport", "Electrician Cardiff", and "Electrician Cwmbran."

That's not useful content. If a location genuinely warrants its own page, give the reader something specific and worthwhile.

7. Build Your Reputation Beyond Your Own Website

Your website doesn't exist in isolation.

If you claim to be a leading expert in your field but nobody else on the internet appears to know you exist, that's not a particularly convincing signal. Therefore, I want you to think about your wider digital footprint.

Are you listed accurately on relevant professional or industry websites? Have local publications mentioned your business? Do reputable websites link to you? Are there genuine customer reviews? Have you contributed expert comments or guest articles elsewhere?

You see, digital PR, quality guest blogging, and traditional link building still have a place. However, the aim shouldn't be to scatter links across hundreds of low-quality websites to help ChatGPT find your website. On the contrary, it's to build a recognisable business with a credible online presence.

8. Write Content Worth Citing

Graphic woman sat at a computer with pages of content coming out of it

This may be one of the biggest opportunities created by AI search.

If everybody writes a generic article called "10 benefits of X", then there is very little reason for any search or AI system to favour yours above the others. To help ChatGPT find your website, you need to give it something better:

Share your experience.

Explain what customers commonly get wrong.
Compare two approaches and say when you'd choose each one.
Publish original examples.
Answer awkward questions.
Discuss pricing honestly where possible.
Challenge a commonly repeated piece of industry advice if you disagree with it – and explain why.

The internet doesn't desperately need another 800-word blog saying the same thing as the previous 100 ones. What it does need are people who actually know their subject sharing information that isn't available everywhere else. Tricky, yes. Impossible, no.

9. Don't Forget Traditional SEO

As I mentioned right at the beginning of this article, trying to help ChatGPT find your website doesn't mean forgetting Google and other search engines. In fact, as I'm sure you've realised by now, many of the fundamentals overlap.

You still need a technically sound, crawlable website with logical navigation, descriptive page titles, useful headings, strong internal links and well-written pages focused on genuine customer needs. Ultimately, your content should make sense to a person first; I always stress this to my clients. There is little to be gained by contorting every single paragraph into something you imagine AI or search engines want to read.

Cater for your customer. Ensure your website clearly explains who you are, what you do, where you operate, and why you know what you're talking about. That's what they need to know, and by doing that you are already building a much stronger foundation for both traditional and AI-driven searches.

Help ChatGPT Find Your Website - But Write For People

Help ChatGPT find your website a 3d graphic of a person in front of a laptop with books and text

AI is changing how people discover information online, but that doesn't mean websites suddenly need to be written for robots. Quite the opposite. After all, humans, your potential customers, are asking ChatGPT the questions. So, if you want to help ChatGPT find your website, you must make it clear, informative, and more authoritative for the people you're trying to reach.

Follow the guidance listed above. None of it is particularly technical (save point 1); it is simply about making sure you have good website content. The difference is that today, a well-written website isn't only helping a potential customer decide whether to contact you; it may also help ChatGPT find your website and decide whether or not to list it in response to a query, ultimately driving fresh traffic your way.

If you would like help reviewing your website content, or creating quality blogs that appeal to both humans and bots, please do not hesitate to get in touch. My name is Heather, and I'm The Content Creator.

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A bit about the author

Heather founded The Content Creator nearly three years ago, combining her love of writing with a genuine passion for helping small businesses and solopreneurs get seen online. She supports her clients with everything from website copy and SEO to AI search visibility, newsletters and social media, taking the stress out of creating content that not only sounds like them, but helps their business grow.

If you need a helping hand with any of these areas, Heather is your go-to girl! We can speak from experience, too, because she works on our own website, helping us keep up with the ever-changing world of SEO and AI search and making sure our content continues to work hard for our business.

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