Mariana Peña
Instructional Designer
Mariana Peña is an instructional designer for rising thought leaders, creators, and experts who want to develop their digital academies and make a mark in the world.
She helps her clients develop signature courses and certification programs that truly represent who they are, taking into account all of their cultural and social identities.
She believes in knocking down knowledge barriers to make education more accessible and inclusive. Through this work, she empowers people with marginalized identities so that their voices are heard, centered, and sought after.
Mariana is from Mexico and is currently based in the Netherlands.
Project Highlights
Here are the top 3 most exciting results Mariana’s new website achieved for her business.
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Built a strong online presence
The new website guides good-fit clients through a smooth client journey that leads to working with Mariana. This makes it easy for Mariana to engage visitors who find her through organic search and social media — without sales calls or DMs.
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Attracted the right clients
The website accurately conveys who Mariana is and what she does as an instructional designer committed to decolonizing online education, encouraging good-fit clients to apply to work with her while repelling poor-fit clients.
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Supported her business all through her maternity leave
While Mariana took a full year of maternity leave, her website continued to work for her business, attracting ideal clients and helping her nurture those new connections.
Project Goals
Mariana had started her business with a quick DIY website. As her business grew, she became dissatisfied with it.
“To no-one’s surprise, that homepage felt as strong as a sand castle. It didn’t communicate who I really was, what I stood for, or who I wanted to work with.
So website shame kicked in, and I didn’t want people to even see it.”
— Mariana Peña
Mariana wanted a brand new website that:
Accurately conveyed who she really was, what she stood for, and who she wanted to work with
Helped her build a strong online presence so that good-fit clients could easily find her through organic search and social media
Led visitors on a smooth client journey selling Mariana’s offers, reducing time previously spent on individual conversations and social media promotion
Website
For Mariana’s website, I focused on creating strategic layouts to guide website visitors through a clear customer journey. Because we had a large volume of information, it was important to present it in a way that was easy to navigate, consume, and digest.
Mariana’s brand is a unique combination of high-end and approachable, and empathetic and unapologetically candid. I paid close attention to the visuals, the flow of information, and the layout of the content to make sure this was accurately reflected in the design.
Mariana had worked with Illiah Vilet of C&V Creative and came to me with a complete set of logos, brand colors, and fonts. She had also done a ton of internal work on the less visible parts of her brand — including her vision, mission, ideal clients, brand personality, and brand voice — and took on the task of writing all of her website copy.
So my work consisted mainly of organizing and applying these different elements in a strategic way to build a clear customer journey.
As with all my projects, I made sure that the website not only looked stunning but also followed best practices for accessibility, usability, SEO, and mobile responsiveness.
The completed website is made up of 5 main elements:
Core pages: homepage, about page, and work with me page
Sales pages for Mariana’s three main offers
Media page featuring her media features and appearances
Lead magnet opt-in page for growing her email list
Blog design to support her content strategy
Results
Mariana was thrilled with the way her website looked visually and how it presented her offers to prospective clients while highlighting her unwavering commitment to decolonizing education.
The completed website achieved these results for Mariana:
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Built a strong online presence
The new website guides good-fit clients through a smooth client journey that leads to working with Mariana. This makes it easy for Mariana to engage visitors who find her through organic search and social media — without sales calls or DMs.
-
Attracted the right clients
The website accurately conveys who Mariana is and what she does as an instructional designer committed to decolonizing online education, encouraging good-fit clients to apply to work with her while repelling poor-fit clients.
-
Supported her business all through her maternity leave
While Mariana took a full year of maternity leave, her website continued to work for her business, attracting ideal clients and helping her nurture those new connections.
Client Testimonial
“Like many online entrepreneurs, I started my business as scrappy as possible. Focused on building my clientele and portfolio first, I put together the quickest DIY website and called it a day.
To no one’s surprise, that homepage felt as strong as a sand castle. It didn’t communicate who I really was, what I stood for, or who I wanted to work with. So website shame kicked in, and I didn’t want people to even see it.
Fortunately, Danbee stepped in, and my life changed (ok, my website first, and then my business as a result, but really, my life too).
You see, as a business owner, you quickly realize that there are but a handful of people that will actually have an impact on how you run your business.
Danbee Shin is one of them. She is insightful, extremely precise as a web designer, creative when it comes to design, caring with crafting globally inclusive pages, and above all, an absolute pleasure to work with.
The concept was so on point that I didn’t even know my brand could look like that.
It attracted the right type of people to my virtual door and stood strongly doing so while I took a full year of maternity leave (if that doesn’t tell you how good of a job she did, nothing will at this point!)
So do yourself a favor and work with Danbee. That’s it. Invest in one of the top people out there and gain not only solid clients but also a true friend.”
— Mariana Peña
Get a website that brings in clients even while you’re away from your devices.
If you’d also like a new website that accurately reflects who you are, what you stand for, and who you want to help, I’d love to build it for you.
Click the button below to check out my Web Design Services.