How to have a website aligned with your business goals
If you're running your own business, there's a good chance you know this feeling already. You've been getting by with a website you put together when you first started your business, and every time you send someone the link, you wince a little. Your business has grown and you’re wondering how to get a website aligned with your business goals.
That was exactly where Alissa Swedlow was when she came to me. A calligrapher and wedding stationery designer, she'd built her business from nothing into something brides genuinely fell in love with. But she'd never had a proper website to match it, just something that, in her own words, was "embarrassing," and on top of that, she couldn't work out how to make it findable. She had beautiful work and no clear way to get it in front of the people who wanted it.
The problem wasn't just the design
When we talked it through, it became clear the real issue wasn't just that what she had looked unfinished. She was struggling with the same thing so many first-time website owners struggle with: how do you combine strong visuals with the words search engines and future clients actually need to see? Her photography was gorgeous. What she had just didn't know what to do with it. Photos and text sat awkwardly together, and there wasn't enough text to tell Google, or a browsing bride, what she actually offered.
Her audience is specific: brides looking for wedding invitations and day-of stationery, at a point in the planning process where they're comparing options and deciding who to trust. Her website had one job, which was to teach them what she offered and get them to reach out. It wasn't doing that job yet.
What we built together
Her goals were clear from the start: more traffic, a site that actually looked like her work, and a way to tell her story in both words and pictures. She didn't need anything complicated — a rotating gallery, considered text, and a proper way for people to get in touch. What she wanted most was for the site to feel like her art: whimsical and joyful, without tipping into overdone.
We worked through it together, page by page. She told me afterwards that what stood out to her most wasn't just the finished design, it was how much she learned along the way, about SEO, about how websites work, about what to actually change and why.
That's always been the part of this work I care about most. I'm not interested in disappearing behind a screen and handing back a website you don't understand. I want you to come out the other side knowing more about your own online presence than you did going in, because that's what makes it last.
She came to me needing more text and a proper way for clients to reach her. No big surprises came up along the way. It was, in her words, a smooth process from start to finish, and by the end she had a real website telling her story for the first time.
What changed
Alissa summed up the impact simply: the new site gives a far more professional, more impressive first impression to potential clients than what she had before.
That's the part that matters. A website isn't a design exercise. It's the first conversation a potential client has with your business, often before they've spoken to you at all. When it works, people notice, and they tell you.
Her advice to anyone considering a similar project was this:
"I think Clare looks at the website from so many angles and helps you get your website aligned with your business goals."
That's the whole approach in one sentence. Not chasing trends, not stuffing in keywords for their own sake. Looking at your business from every angle and building something that actually reflects it.
If you've been putting off your first website and you recognised any part of Alissa's story, avoiding sharing, photos and words that never quite sit right together, or simply not knowing where to start, you're not alone, and it's more fixable than it feels right now.
I work with florists, creatives, coaches, retreat leaders and independent business owners who are ready for a first website that actually looks and reads like them, built with SEO woven in from the start rather than bolted on afterwards. No jargon, no guessing, just a collaborative process that gets you a site you're proud to send people to.
If you're thinking about your first website, take a look at how I work and what's involved. I'd love to hear about your business and talk through what a website built around it could look like.
