StoryBrand Website Design
StoryBrand website design that turns visitors into phone calls.
Your website has about five seconds to tell a stranger what you do, who you do it for, and what to do next. Most sites spend those five seconds on a tagline.
Josh Cowen has been a StoryBrand Certified Guide since 2019 and has applied the framework with 40+ businesses. Below are three real sites and what changed after the message got clear.
Most websites fail because they are confusing, not because the business is bad
We have looked at hundreds of service business websites. The pattern almost never changes. The company does genuinely good work, the owner knows their trade cold, and the site opens with something like “Serving the community with excellence since 1998” over a photo of a building.
A homeowner with a leak does not care about the building. They want to know if you fix their problem, if you come to their street, and how fast you can get there. When a site makes them dig for that, they go back to Google and click the competitor whose answer was at the top.
That is the whole problem, and it is a words problem far more often than a design problem. A prettier site with the same unclear message converts about the same.
Real StoryBrand website examples
Three clients, three industries. The numbers come from their own data, not our estimates.
Roofing contractor
Above Roofing
A roofing site that talked about the company's history instead of the homeowner standing in a wet hallway.
- 272% year-over-year increase in web visitors
- 42% of funnel visitors booked an appointment
- 20% increase in year-over-year sales
- Hired a new salesperson to handle the demand
Accounting firm
Pine & Company CPAs
A firm doing excellent work behind a website that read like a services brochure, so nobody knew where to start.
- 7 qualified leads from their website every day
- 40 new clients in a six-week window
- 55% of consultations convert to paying clients
- Over 80% increase in year-over-year sales
Landscaping company
MJR Landscape
Beautiful work, and a site that made a homeowner guess whether the company even served their neighborhood.
- 91% increase in unique website visitors
- 63% increase in appointments booked
- Created a 5-week waitlist from the new demand
What a StoryBrand website actually includes
The framework is specific. These are the pieces that do the work.
A header that passes the five second test
Above the fold, a visitor has to learn what you do, who you do it for, and what to do next. If they have to scroll to figure out whether you serve their zip code, you already lost them.
One obvious next step
Most sites offer six things to do and get none of them. A StoryBrand site has one primary button, repeated, and a softer option for people who are not ready yet.
The problem, named out loud
People buy when they feel understood. Your site should describe the thing keeping them up at night before it describes your process.
A plan they can see
Three or four steps that show what working with you looks like. Uncertainty is what stops people from calling, and a visible plan removes it.
Proof that sounds like them
Testimonials and results from customers in the same situation. A roofing homeowner does not care about your enterprise client.
If you want to work through these yourself, our StoryBrand website design tips and StoryBrand website template posts cover the same ground for free.
How we build it
Messaging first, always. We build your BrandScript before anyone opens a design tool, because a beautiful site built on vague words is just a nicer version of the same problem.
Then we build. Guide MKTG uses a documented method called the AI Website Process, which uses AI for the parts machines are good at, like producing design variations and writing code, while the strategy and the words stay with a certified human. It is the reason we can turn around a full site in weeks instead of months.
This site you are reading was built that way.
Who this is for
Established local service businesses, usually doing $2M or more, with a real service area and a team. Roofers, HVAC and plumbing companies, landscapers, contractors, CPAs, financial firms, and law practices.
- Your work is better than your website makes it look
- You get traffic but the phone does not ring in proportion
- You have rewritten your homepage twice and it still feels off
- Someone asks what you do and you need three sentences to answer
We are not the right fit for eCommerce, SaaS, or early stage startups. That work is real, it is just not what we are good at.
Do you need a StoryBrand website designer, or can you do this yourself?
Plenty of owners read Building a StoryBrand and get real value from it. If you have time and you enjoy writing, start there. The book is good and we recommend it constantly.
Where people get stuck is almost always the same two places. The problem section, because describing your customer’s pain in their words is harder than it looks. And positioning yourself as the guide without sliding back into talking about your company.
A certified guide has done this dozens of times and can compress what usually takes weeks of rewriting into a session or two. That is most of what you are paying for.
Common questions about StoryBrand website design
What is a StoryBrand website designer?
A StoryBrand website designer builds sites using the StoryBrand framework created by Donald Miller, where the customer is the hero of the story and the business is the guide who helps them win. In practice that means the messaging gets built before the design does. A StoryBrand Certified Guide has completed the official training and certification, so the framework is applied the way it was designed rather than approximated from the book.
What does a StoryBrand website cost?
Start with the No-BS Strategy Session at $350. You get an honest read on what is actually broken, and you owe us nothing after it. If you decide to keep going, the Marketing Action Plan is $5,500, which is where we work out the strategy and what your message needs to say. The messaging package that comes out of it is $5,000. A full site build depends on how many pages you need and whether we are writing all the copy from scratch. Most clients are into five figures by the time a site is finished, and we would rather you know that now than three calls in.
Can I just use a StoryBrand website template?
A template gives you the structure but not the words, and the words are the hard part. Most business owners who try to write their own site copy get stuck on the problem section, or on how to position themselves as the guide without it sounding like a pitch. If you want to try it yourself, our StoryBrand website design tips and website template posts are a genuine starting point.
Do I need a whole new website or just new copy?
Often just the copy. A surprising number of sites have decent design and unclear messaging, and rewriting the words fixes the conversion problem without a rebuild. We tell you which one you need on the strategy call, and sometimes the answer is that you need less than you thought.
Do you work with businesses outside West Michigan?
Yes. Most of this work happens remotely and we have built sites for clients around the country. West Michigan is home, but the framework does not care where you are located.
Find out what your website is actually saying
The No-BS Strategy Session is $350. We look at what you have, tell you honestly what is working and what is costing you calls, and you leave with a plan. Hire us afterward or do not. Either way you get the read.
Book a $350 Strategy Session