Millions of new websites are launched each year, and millions close down. Most are destined to fail at educating customers, selling products and services, generating PR, or even just improving your branding efforts. Why? Lack of planning. Most website are just thrown together with little thought or guidance from the business owner. There’s no need to launch a website that flounders, however. Proper planning can help ensure that your website meets the objectives you set. I have developed a seven step planning guide to use BEFORE you spend any money on the actual development of the site.
Audience– To whom is the site directed? It is important that we define who we want the site visitors to be up front. By doing so, we can make sure that all of our planning and development takes place in a manner consistent with this audience in mind. Ask yourself throughout the design and construction phases, “How will this appear to our target audience?”
Uniqueness– What about your site will make it different from the competition? If you have a site that does exactly what your competitors do, congratulations, you’ve just wasted your time and money. If your competitors have a site that seems to do EVERYTHING, then create a site that has fewer functions but works better at doing them. Specialization on the web works just as well as in the real world.
Direction– The key question is what do we wish to have our visitors do? Every page on your website should have some direction for site visitors. Seth Godin writes about this concept in his book, “The Big Red Fez”. If you want visitors to buy a product, make that the dominant feature on your homepage. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter, make that obvious at a glance. Whatever your goal for a site visitor may be, make sure that it is obvious to everyone that it is the designed action for them to take.
Simplicity– Less is more, especially on the web. We can probably all think of numerous websites that are so cluttered, so filled with things to click on, watch, play with, etc. that we do none of the above. Too many options for a site visitor will scare them away from your site. Keep it simple, and you will have far higher conversion percentages of visitors taking action than if you pack everything you can think of on your site.
Functionality– What do you need the site to do? List all of the core functions your site needs to include. Write out how these should work. If you have a site that will let someone check the status of an order on the web, plan out exactly what someone will need to click on, type in, and how their information will be returned to them. By doing so, you can find cumbersome processes and refine them before you build them.
Branding– How does it relate to your branding strategy? Some websites look like they are from a completely different company than their other marketing efforts. Consistency in your marketing efforts is vital- so make sure that whatever is designed fits with the rest of what you are doing.
Visibility– Who can find your site? Who do you want to find it? How will people find you? You should put together a web marketing plan before you develop your site. This way you can include tracking options as part of the structure of your site. Whether that is conversion tracking for Google AdWords, different URLs with promotional codes used in advertising efforts, or even just good stat tracking. It is important to figure out where people are finding you if you want to be able to improve the quality of site traffic in the future.
I hope these items help you with your web construction efforts. Please call or e-mail me with any comments or questions.
This article was written by SBA Network Sales Technology specialist Matt Walker. You can reach him at 714-269-4123 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.