What better way to kick off my design project case study series than with the gal who inspired it? Between the Lines Copywriting is the website copywriter, content & marketing strategist, and business genius that I just so happened to meet accidentally on TikTok in November 2020. After a year of countless voice memos, Instagram DMs, Facetimes, and memes, we decided to add “custom copywriter website project” to our fully bloomed friendship.

The Project

First, a little context. Sara is a personality-driven and SEO copywriter who offers website copy, brand messaging, business consulting and VIP Days (where you can hire her to do sales pages, email marketing, and more). On top of all that, she also has a new course coming out in 2022 and a shop where she sells copy templates, SEO guides, merch, and digital downloads.

(Ahem—if you’re looking for a way to diversify your business’s income, just poke around Sara’s site. She is the queen of creating offers at different price points, including free—her blog is a wealth of knowledge and I’m obsessed.)

BTL Copy is also a book-themed concept brand, meaning books and libraries are part of her whole vibe in one way or another. All in all, I had my work cut out for me.

Goals & Deliverables

The main goal of every website I work on is to convert. In Sara’s case, our focus was on selling her services (her most popular and highest ticket offers).

Among our list of goals included:

• Highlight the overall brand messaging of Between the Lines Copywriting: one part strategy, two parts personality
• Capture the already-established book concept brand vibe with pre-existing color palette
• Allow Sara’s fiery personality to shine through the greens, blues, and beiges she loves
• Sell services, products, and her course
• Provide education and resources to her audience
• Diversify her income with affiliate marketing
• Establish even more trust and brand authority

In order to meet these goals, we planned for a decently-sized website build. (And it absolutely was. All in all, we created 8 main pages, 3 product pages, plus a mini sales page template that she can duplicate and use whenever she wants.)

Design Challenges

Apart from the size of the build itself (and our lofty list of goals), Sara will be the first to tell you that she’s far from a “long story short” kinda gal. While most projects I work on struggle to find enough words to talk about themselves or their services, Sara is in no short supply. So, I knew that my design had to 1.) make the words the star of the show and 2.) visually allow for enough text without overwhelming our users.

Another challenge was finding something fresh & new within her brand consistency. The beautiful part about working with already-established business owners is that sometimes, they already have a brand vibe they are known for. This was absolutely the case with Sara—just scroll back on her instagram page and you can see that her cool-toned, pastel color palette has always been a thing. It was my job to find something fresh and new within it, so that our website launch could have its desired “wow”!

Design Solutions

With a hefty list of goals, deliverables, and challenges, I had my work cut out for me. Here are a few of the design solutions I executed to create the new-and-improved BTL Copy website.

Use of Video and Other Moving Elements

In order to make the brand feel fresh & new again (without feeling unfamiliar), I decided to add movement wherever I could. Whether it was background videos, auto-rotating galleries, or flashing testimonials, I knew the site needed a little zing. Video is also one of my favorite elements to use on a website. With the rise of TikTok, Reels, and other video platforms, there’s really no better way to bing a website into 2022. (If you’ve been thinking about hiring a videographer for your next brand shoot, DO IT.)

Use of Lines & Structured Sections

In an overall nod to books, I wanted to add a few design elements that made you feel like you were reading (and turning) an actual page. On each page, you’ll find at least once section where I employed the use of horizontal lines to look like the top of a book margin.

On top of the brand concept, lines give us the underlying feeling of structure and strategy that Sara employs in her copywriting projects. They balance out her personality-driven copy in a way that makes us trust and value her expertise.

An Innovative and Satisfying Scroll

Sara has so many free resources, it’s borderline insane—so I wanted to make sure that her resources page was scrollable and navigable. It turned out to be both those things, and also incredibly satisfying. (Hint: for most satisfying scroll, you’ll probably want to look at this page on desktop.)

Our Favorite Parts

If you’ve ever designed a website before, you know that feeling when you’re like “I love this website, but I can’t stop looking at ~this one page~. Sara and I have a few of those, but here is my shortlist of favorite sections that I already have 12 screenshots of.

The Glossary

At the end of the about page, you can find a 5-view glossary, listing 26 facts about Sara that correspond to each letter of the alphabet. This section is my absolute favorite—it’s so her, but it’s also incredibly on brand, *and* interactive. Take it for a spin here.

The Custom 404 Page

Whyyyyyy do I love this so much? Is it Sara’s excellent headline? The goofy picture? The fact that, if I clicked a broken link and read this, I’d literally LOL? Not sure—but this goes down in history as the best 404 page I’ve ever worked on.

The Copywriting Portfolio

Many copywriters I know have a portfolio in the form of a PDF or links, but Sara does hers blog-style, which I absolutely love. (And it’s even better because Sara knows how important design is, so she keeps it up immaculately.) I love that this deviates from her blog page’s main style and helps us see (visually) that we are tuned in to something completely different. And if you want a real treat, go read some of them—so many smart tactics!

Copywriter Website Launch: The Outcome

In addition to so much praise on Instagram as a result of this launch (because… well, ya gotta), Sara received an unprecedented number of new project inquiries and even hit her highest-earning income month as a creative freelancer directly after the launch of her new copywriter website.

Overall, what people loved most was how true-to-Sara the site stayed, while also feeling like a step up (if that’s even possible for her). And it goes without saying that what I loved was working with a dream client, who also just so happens to be one of my best friends. Win-win.

If you’re interested these kinds of results, I’d be honored to work on a custom website design project together. Can’t wait to chat about yours!

Additional Credits & Collaborators

SEO & Strategy by Duo Collective // Branding by Dani Tee Design Studio // Photography by Digital Brand Stylist