Designing a website

Too many websites fail because their owners haven’t thought about whether they need actually need or want one.

Why a website?

What are you trying to achieve in becoming a website owner? This is a question that most people don’t ask, consequently few websites have any tangible goals. If you can’t answer this question, it’s probably time to quit.

Who are your target audience?

Should you decide to go ahead, there’s nothing wrong with catching the eye of casual surfers, but it makes sense to have an idea of the type of visitor you’d like to attract.

This’ll help you decide what information needs to form the core of the website, remember, content is king.

What do you expect them to do?

There’s been quite a lot written recently on the ‘Call to Action’.

Your goals, remember the first step, will tell you what action you’d like visitors to take, but you need to decide how to structure the site to take them in the right direction.

What’s their motivation for investigating your website?

There are a huge number of websites on the Internet, and some of them will offer the same thing as you’re site, so what’s going to differentiate your website from these others?

Knowing your audience helps when creating an effective marketing campaign to accompany the site launch: where to advertise and how.

Why will they come back?

Your content is undoubtedly fabulous, and a sound foundation, but how is it structured and presented? If your hard won readership can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll go somewhere else, and are unlikely to come back.

You’ve got to commit to regularly providing something new and of value to your visitors. This is seriously time consuming, and if you’re unwilling, or unable to make this commitment it’s your last chance to back out of the website game.

Still interested? Next time it’s time to start building the website.