Epic India
Unit 2- Planning To Design web page
A. Common Section: these will contain general information about the organization
2.3 Defining Your goal .1 Why Set Site Goals?
In this section we‘ll discuss the two key reasons for developing specific goals for your website. When we sit down with organization to talk about their web strategy, one of the first questions that I ask is ―Why did you originally develop your site?‖ Often, there‘s a moment of uncomfortable silence before someone replies, ―because our competitors all had one‖, or
―our customers kept asking for our web address‖, or one of my personal favorites ―to get our name out there‖.
In addition, some companies build a website for branding purposes, or to provide information to potential clients, thinking that one-way communication is a return on investment, and therefore a valid goal. I‘m afraid that I disagree. Using a website merely to provide information is like using an airplane to drive around town without ever leaving the ground, you‘re missing the real opportunity to help your business
‗take-off‘ by creating opportunities to follow up with qualified prospects. After all, a website is an organization resource, and like any other resource it must provide a return on investment, or some kind of conversion. That return should be immediate and measurable, meaning that the bottom line for any website is – how specifically has the website grown my online business today/this week/this month, and so on.
Furthermore, the issue of identifying goals is a critical one for two reasons. First, goals help you to determine what should or shouldn‘t be included on your site. In a sense, you actually build your site backwards – start with your online goals and then flesh out the structure and content from there. This can actually remove much of the politics of website development. As you use your goals document as a set of criteria
130 for determining site content, there‘s much less room for disagreement. For example, instead of executives engaging in power struggles about who decides what is included on the website, reviewing site goals will allow any particular suggestion to be evaluated in an objective way – does this content help accomplish any of these goals?
Secondly, having specific goals allows you to measure the effectiveness of your site after it‘s completed and live. That‘s key because if you can‘t measure conversion, then improving it becomes much more problematic. So you‘ll find that measurement and improvement are the keys to that ROI you‘re looking for.
I think the bottom line on goal setting is that if you never identify the target, then you can‘t expect to hit it. Likewise, developing a website with only fuzzy goals about educating your target audience won‘t allow you to effectively design, measure, or refine your site. In addition, you‘ll be missing the awesome potential of driving qualified leads and customers to your in-box 24x7.
2.3.2 Defining Site Goals
Most small organization websites have a combination of goals, but it‘s important to prioritize them so that the appropriate amount of focus can be placed on them during the site creation process, and so that results can be accurately measured and compared once your web design project is complete. For a small business website, there are three primary goals:
generating leads
selling products via e-commerce
generating referrals
The reason why it is said because, these are the only conversions that lead to real rupees. So, they‘re the only way for your website to produce a return-on-investment (ROI). I think I‘ve said before, small businesses don‘t have time or money to waste on ineffective marketing, you need an ROI, and you need one fast.
I do understand that websites can accomplish other less-tangible benefits for a small business. I call these secondary goals. Typical secondary goals include objectives such as:
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building credibility
supporting existing customers
and, recruiting partners or affiliates
I consider these goals secondary because if this was ALL that your site did, then you‘re really missing the real potential of a company website. Defining primary and secondary site goals is relatively easy. Ask yourself ―what would I like my site to do for me that it‘s not doing today?‖
Think things through from your own perspective – your website is a company resource, and should provide a real ROI. Be a little ‗self-centered‘ as you identify what you want your site to accomplish. We‘ll get around to making your site interesting to visitors a little later. For now, just focus on what you want.
Now, I understand that everyone wants to increase their sales, but let me provide a word of caution. Not every product or services lends itself to purchasing on the web.
Some examples include products with a high cost, professional services (like CPA‘s and so on) that require some level of interaction, complex products that have involved selection processes. The bottom line is probably this – if it seems unlikely or unreasonable to expect visitors to enter their credit card to purchase your products or service, and then shoot for lead generation as your primary goal.
These goals will be used extensively later as you consider site structure, messaging, calls to action, and other critical elements of an effective site. Your secondary goals are likely to translate into single pages, whereas the primary goals will account for the majority of the site structure and content.
2.4 Getting to know your audience
It is critical when designing your website to understand and recognize your target audience. Many websites lose sight of this fact or never really have a true target audience in mind to begin with. The loss of this most fundamental aspect of any website may lead to a meandering design that tries to appeal to everyone, thus lacking focus and in actuality appealing to very few. Being too broad in scope may draw occasional visitors, but risks being so vague and bland that it connects with only a very small readership.
132 However, some websites take it in the other direction, choosing to focus so strongly on their target audience that they narrowly pinpoint too particular a demographic or segment in their design, therefore ostracizing other possible audiences. This can in turn leave their audience too small to support the site.
If you‘re concerned about focusing your website‘s design toward your target audience, here are some crucial areas you may want to consider when doing so.
2.4.1 Think Like Your Audience From the Beginning
When you write or post items on your website, to whom are you writing? Who do you think will see what you are posting? Will the design and information contained on your site have the desired effect upon this audience?
These are the types of questions you might want to ask yourself when it comes to envisioning who will be you target audience. If you don‘t have a clear idea before you begin designing your website, the sooner you can get one, the sooner you can begin to design a website that is better geared toward your target audience.
2.4.2 Profile Your Target Market
But sometimes it isn‘t that easy to pinpoint an exact target audience. Knowing who or what kind of people you want your site to appeal to, may not be dry. Let‘s take the design of a financial website for example. A financial website could appeal to a huge variety of audiences, each with their own needs when it comes to design. There could be the personal finance audience who is looking for articles teaching them how to save money. Maybe the stockbroker and investment analyst audience is looking for hot stock picks and fancy charts. It could be that the baby boomer, retiree audience needs retirement calculators. Or are you catering to the stay-at-homers looking to clip coupons to save on diapers, baby food and household items?
Therefore, when you are considering your target audience, consider breaking your possible audience into categories of people most likely to be in tune with your site.
Categories such as age, sex, profession, income, interests, hobbies and geographic
133 location may all come into play when deciding if your website‘s design matches your target audience.
2.4.3 Cater to Varying Abilities & Skill Levels
You will also likely need to consider the abilities of your target audience, when it comes to your website design. Is your target audience going to have the skills, education or capability needed to understand, navigate and properly use your website as you have designed it? Just because you‘ve created a beautiful website doesn‘t necessarily mean that it will be conducive to your target audience‘s needs. If your website isn‘t useful to your target audience, you may find yourself with a site that is incredibly designed, but used by no one.
2.4.4 Will They Return?
Finally, you might consider whether the design of your website has made it worth your target audience‘s while to return. If not, maybe this isn‘t your target audience after all, or may be you need to adjust the design of your website, if it is not conducive to your audience‘s needs. Consider the balance between design and usability on your website to better ensure your target audience will visit again. What do you need to do to attract and keep your target audience? Is it your site‘s design that you may need to adjust or your theory behind who your target audience may actually be? Being open and honest when answering such questions will allow you to focus on how or if your website‘s design and your target audience are compatible.