Why narrative consulting actually has everything to do with your homepage
Here’s what I hear a lot: “I don’t need a narrative consultant. I just need a website.”
Fair. You probably do need a website. But let me fill you in on a the “big lie” of web development: they can build you a beautiful site that says absolutely nothing. Not because they’re bad at their job. Because that’s not their job.
Their job is to build. Your job—or someone’s job—is to know what it should say, and why, and to whom, and in what order. That’s the narrative work. And if it doesn’t happen before the developer opens a template, you end up with a site that looks great and converts nobody. Let’s not forget, the point of your website isn’t to dazzle. It’s to move your intended audience to action.
Is your digital billboard saying what you think it’s saying?
Every design choice on your website is a narrative choice—whether you made it consciously or not. The order of your nav links sets visitors on a journey. If they like the journey they’re on, they’re likely to run the full course.
Most websites are built from the inside out: here’s who we are, here’s what we do, here’s how to reach us. That feels logical. But it’s the wrong direction. Visitors don’t arrive on your site thinking about you. They arrive thinking about their problem. If your site doesn’t meet them there, they leave.
Narrative consulting flips the frame. Before we talk copy or layout or calls-to-action, we ask: who is this person, and what are they trying to figure out? What do they need to believe before they’ll take any action at all? What’s getting in the way of that belief right now?
The answers to those questions should drive every word on your site. That’s not copywriting. That’s strategic content creation and the payoff is worth it.
The real problem with “we’ll figure out the content later”
I cannot tell you how many organizations have launched a site and then wondered why no one was signing up, why the bounce rate is so high, why their shiny new toy isn’t getting any attention. Shiny is fine. But “fine” is not a narrative. Fine is noise.
Think of it this way: your website is one of dozens of things competing for your visitor’s attention in a single scroll. For your message to register—to land instead of blur—it needs to be recognizable. Coherent. Connected.
That coherence doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen after the site is built. It has to exist before the first wireframe, or you’re just dressing up noise.
So what does a narrative consultant actually do for your website?
A few things, but all of them come before the developer touches anything:
We identify your primary audience and what they actually need to hear. (Hint: You’re likely talking at them not to them.)
We map the narrative arc of your site—what does someone need to understand on page one before they’re ready for page two?
We align your messaging internally first—so that your team, your board, your partners are all pulling the same direction before that message goes public.
We build the message architecture—the skeleton that holds your copy, your layout decisions, and your calls-to-action together so they feel like a single thing, not a hodgepodge of visions concerning what the site should do.
Then the developer builds it. And the copywriter fills it in. And it works, because the foundation is there.
You don’t need less help. you need it in a different order.
I’m not here to talk you out of your website. I want you to have a great one. I just want it to work—for you, for your audience, for whatever you’re trying to make happen.
The question isn’t “do I need narrative consulting?” The question is whether you’re going to do the narrative work before or after you spend money on a site. Doing it after is expensive. Doing it before is how you end up with a site that actually does what you needed it to do.
So yes. You need a website. Let’s make sure it says something.
If you have a banger website that’s not converting, you likely have a messy narrative and a disrupted journey. Check out cojaservices.com or email info@cojaservices.com to see if our strategy resonates and set up a call. Let us know you found us on Substack and you’ll receive a free website audit.
