For the past 3 years, I’ve had the privilege to work with Gwyn Wansbrough, the widely respected facilitator and creator of the online course, Breakthrough Facilitation. She is a super connector through and through.

She’s been a mentor to me through her program, and the Breakthrough Arc framework she teaches is a big part of how we run our live events at Maple, and even in how I design a website for connection. This post is a reflection on how we worked together to redesign her website, refine her messaging and reader experience, and clarify her website offers.

This website redesign wasn’t just about the layouts and style of gwynwansbrough.com. It was about creating a platform that would authentically represented Gwyn’s contributions to the art of facilitation, share the breakthroughs she’s created for students, and build real connection with her audience.

I think we’re all lucky Gwyn stepped up when she did.

Before the pandemic, Gwyn’s career was primarily in-person as a group facilitator and mentor to other facilitators. When everything moved online, like so many of us, she felt lost, and wondered if the skills she used in person would have the same impact. In a trial-by-fire, Gwyn developed an online facilitation framework that became her flagship course, Breakthrough Facilitation.

Her course had sweeping impacts and came together at the right time.

It even influenced the community platform Circle.so – with Mathilde Leo, head of community at Circle being part of the cohort. I’ve been part of sessions that Mathilde hosted and they are exceptional – and that’s just one example.

Gwyn’s contributions extended into hundreds of online courses and cohort experiences that were happening online. Most online courses were missing the opportunity of bringing people together, and most educators were lacking awareness of the value of facilitation. Any of the thousands of people who learned from Gwyn were gaining tools to bring connection into their courses at a time we needed it most.

I think we’re all lucky she was there at that moment – I certainly was!

This course exceeded my expectations. I joined Breakthrough Facilitation to sharpen my facilitation skills. I now use the BF framework to design all of my virtual sessions. I am more confident. The quality of my sessions has improved. My participants are more engaged earlier on in the sessions. I get raving feedback on the new techniques and activities.

Mathilde Leo, Head of Community at Circle

Defining a clear objective for the website. What’s it to do?

Every project I work on needs a clear objective. With this clear, we can design backwards, identifying all the requirements and creating a vision of what “done” looks like. It’s never about achieving perfection. It’s about clear milestones.

So we hopped on a Zoom call to discuss the objective. To make it tangible I asked “What’s coming up in the next 6 months that your website plays a role in?

At the time she was about to run another cohort of Breakthrough Facilitation, and was preparing to release a self-paced version as well called Live Session Magic. And… like I mentioned before, she needed to refresh the overall design to better match the ‘expert level’ she had achieved in her career.

Our Objective: To design and develop a website that represents the professionalism, warmth, and transformation Gwyn provides through her online programs, Breakthrough Facilitation and Live Session Magic.

Hint: If you explore Gwyn’s lessons on hosting live events, you’ll learn session planning tools to achieve clarity on your event structure and work backwards to identify exercises to achieve it.

Squarespace was holding her back. She needed a website that could grow with her audience.

Gwyn has been publishing a new blog post and sending a newsletter every Monday – and at the time had over a hundred posts. Her site was on Squarespace, which is an okay platform for smaller websites, but not one that continues to grow.

She had new programs, a growing audience, and Squarespace was actually limiting this growth. The clear fit to support her creative growth was a professional WordPress website. WordPress is still the most supported and prolific platform online, and it is and always has been a platform for content management (or CMS).

Before working with Maple Creative, Gwyn’s website lacked clarity and cohesion, making it difficult for potential participants to grasp the value of her course. Her previous Squarespace site felt outdated and did not reflect her professionalism or the depth of her work.

Squarespace is also restrictive. They make it difficult to move content, often trapping their customers on their platform. As a writer and educator Gwyn had well over a hundred articles to publish, which meant she needed a developer who could tackle the challenge of migrating her content into the new design she was creating.

Her old website also lacked an organized structure for headings and styles. With the redesign we were able to think ahead about the kinds of changes she’d need to make as her business grew. Especially when it comes to detailed and informative pages (like the sales page for Breakthrough Facilitation), she needed a website with consistent styles and layouts.

“Before with my Squarespace site, I was like, ‘Oh, well, here’s the website link, but excuse the website, it has to be updated.’ Now, I feel confident that the course is well represented.”

Gwyn Wansbrough

The Solution: Connection Based Design

It’s so common for people to feel embarrassed or hesitant sharing their link. Websites get outdated, they get put on the back burner, or people are just plain stuck. Along with a platform change, Gwyn needed to know her website would connect with her ideal readers. It needed to show the impact she was having!

A template site on Squarespace was a starting point – and worked until it didn’t. Templates aren’t designed to grow and change – and when they do the site becomes disjointed. To feel confident Gwyn needed the site to website you need to know for certain that it’s providing real value for readers.

To do this, we use connection based design. This uses the frameworks that facilitators use to create connection before they move into a main activity and then wrap things up with clarity, commitment, and action.

A website is an experience – Even if it’s asynchronous. It’s non-linear, which is what makes it so interesting and complex at the same time. The experience someone has is emergent and it’s based on what they are drawn to and the trust and context that’s established with the design and the content.

To be effective, websites need to connect! Then it needs to give context, provide value, and support readers in taking decisive action.

📌 If you take a look at Gwyn’s breakthrough arc, you’ll see how she’s informed our approach.

Starting with connection with images and social proof

Home pages need to connect right away – so her website needed to align her portrait photo with a strong values statement. Then, to back it up, we added testimonials and some logos of companies she’s worked with.

Gwyn already had an amazing photos, and her experience facilitating gave her an empathetic style of copywriting.

We designed a home page experience that brought all the important details into view; connection, a strong opening statement, and social proof (quotes and endorsements).

Providing clarity and context in the menu

Gwyn’s website had TONS of value, but the previous site lacked a clear navigation. It wasn’t always self-evident or easy to find it. We designed a simple menu with clear calls to action. Menus on websites are not just links. They are an opportunity to create the bird’s-eye view of everything available. It gives context and it creates awareness of what else is there.

Since nearly 60% of website visitors are using mobile devices, we designed a home page that provided an abridged overview of her website for someone scrolling down the page (common for mobile readers)

Some people go right for the menu, no matter what device they’re on. We worked together to create a very simple and a clear menu structure so people could find what they’re looking for.

Getting Clear the Purpose of Each Page

What tangible value does this page provide?

This is the important question that needs to be answered for every page on a website in order for it to make the cut. This also applies to sales pages, especially sales pages.

My favorite part of working on her website was getting to dive deep into her cohort based program Breakthrough Facilitation. She was rewriting her sales page, and wanted to provide value even if someone wasn’t a good fit for the whole program.

We designed her sales page to help readers understand her model of facilitation and what becomes possible. By listing all the questions students might ask (or should ask) before joining, we ensured the sales page was filling those gaps.

This resulted in clean, organized sales pages that provide real value.

Sales isn’t about being pushy; it’s about educating people so they understand the value of your offer.

A generous sales page is not saying “This is the only solution that will work for you”. Instead, it’s saying, “Here is the solution. And here are all the ways you can achieve it on your own with a variety of resources. But what’s unique about our solution is this, and this is who it’s for.”

Here’s a screenshot of the Breakthrough Facilitation course page, before and after.

The tools to manage her own website

Gwyn publishes a weekly blog and newsletter, “The Quest”, which packs a ton of value to anyone learning or practicing facilitation. I sometimes forward issues to friends when I know they have an event coming up or a topic would resonate.

For a content creator, being able to add content without relying on external help is critical. Sometimes she calls us in to do something more advanced, but for these weekly routines she has the tools to get it done.

More recently Gwyn launched a new online course “Live Session Magic” which is a self-paced journey through the tools and skills of online facilitation.

“One of the things I love about working with Maple Creative is that they build capacity, not just a website. I was able to put together my course page myself, with just a few finishing touches from the team.”

Gwyn Wansbrough

It works because Gwyn’s strategy is consistently generous

Gwyn is naturally generous – and this aligned perfectly with our values at Maple Creative. If you’re not doing this already, you can study Gwyn’s website and study this model. Focus on providing value attracts the right visitors, shows (not tells), cultivates connection, and opens doors to new opportunities.

The result is that people feel good about sharing her website, and so does she.

During strategy sessions, we mapped out ways Gwyn could uphold this value of generosity and teaching. She had been publishing a weekly newsletter, The Quest, and already had over 200 posts!

We migrated them to the website, connected to Kit.com (her email marketing platform), and setup her signup forms to keep track of the conversion rates (% of subscribers to visitors).

A Lasting Partnership

Gwyn told us her experience with Maple Creative went beyond a website build. Ultimately it was about creating a digital foundation for growth.

Since launching her new website, Gwyn has been able to:

• Run multiple cohorts of Breakthrough Facilitation with greater ease
• Increase course pricing to better reflect its true value
• Launch a new digital course, Live Session Magic, with a seamless user experience
• Receive recognition from other creators who use her site as a model for their own

I’m truly honored and proud to support Gwyn in having a greater impact.

Her kind words mean so much, and the results she’s seeing from having a quality website motivates us to stay focused on our craft – helping generous creators, educators, and leaders make a difference.

Given everything you’ve read so far, you can imagine how good it feels to receive these kind words from Gywn herself;

“I would highly recommend Maple Creative to any creator looking to elevate their presence. They truly understand the creator space and how to bring authenticity and clarity to digital platforms.“

Gwyn Wansbrough