Build a Better Website Blog

Establish a concise list of objectives for your website.
What do you want to accomplish? Sell a product?  Sell a service? Gather contact info for emailing or calling?  Sign up a new member?  Motivate to visit a physical location? Motivate to call?  Invite to take a survey?  Invite to submit feedback?  When you’ve decided what actions to prompt visitors to take, you can design your site for all pages to work towards that goal or goals.

Determine your market niche and focus.

 
If you want to drive people to visit your brick and mortar location, be sure that maps and driving directions are prominent.  Include photos of the location.  Include testimonials of how easy it was for customers to find it and what great service they received there.  Make your business hours clear.
 
What is your niche market?
If you have several goals, you may need to decide between having one or more sites.  With multiple products or services that are closely related, one site may be sufficient, but if they differ slightly or you’ll be marketing them differently, unique sites may be best so that each can achieve it’s particular purpose.  One larger site can be easier to administer and the combined volume of content could be better for SEO.

Keep your navigation logical and your order process simple.  Offer “help” pages or windows when any doubt could arise about what visitors should do next or what information to enter in forms.  This is where “pop-up windows” can be helpful.  If someone is interested enough to take out their credit card or submit information, don’t lose them by complicating the process.  Make it clear what buttons to press and which links to choose for their individual needs.

Identify your target audience
Who exactly are you trying to reach?  Are they located in a particular geographic area?  How old are they and might they have any technical or physical challenges?  What information do they need, and how fast? Will graphics help?  What is their typical financial situation?  Are they male, female or both?  What is their age group and education level?  What keywords would they use to describe your product/service?  Answering these questions will help improve your conversion rate without wasted effort and cost.  The better you understand your customers, the easier to meet their needs.  What is your niche?
The above factors could help you determine any of these:
 - Language(s) for site to use and/or how formal text should be
 - Text size and colors
 - Amount of text per page and reading level of terminology used
 - Objective of site (online sale or visit location or contact via phone or email)
 - Types of images to best reinforce text
 - Most appealing images of people (similar age/race/occupational make-up)

As a website owner, you must give your visitors what they want.
The main goal of your website is to “sell” your products, services or ideas.  An eCommerce (Shopping Cart) site directly earns revenue by taking online orders.  Informational sites seek to persuade visitors to travel to a physical location or request further details by phone, email, or signing up for a newsletter or membership. Whatever tactic your site takes, you must study the whole process from the visitor’s point of view. 
Right from the start, your web pages must be engaging and provide what people came there to find.

Keep the people happy
“Content is King!”  This has been the credo of web designers and SEO experts from day one.  Incorporate the “keywords” and “keyphrases” your visitors are searching for throughout the site.  Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines.  The most popular of these expressions must be included on your pages in various places.

With endless choices for any subject, your site must be customer focused.  Catch the attention of visitors within 3-8 seconds or they will try one of the other three million related sites, never to return again.  First impression is crucial, so choose your home page headlines, text, images and colors carefully. 

Capturing their attention within the first few seconds is most important, but you then have to make it easy to solve the problem that initially led them there.  The home page needs to concisely explain how you can help
them.  It needs to have a layout and navigation system where visitors will quickly realize that their answer is just one or two clicks away.  Don’t irritate them by requiring 4 or 5 clicks or by making it a game to guess
which links may have the most pertinent details. Even if they “get lucky”, they may not be able to stumble upon answers in the future.

Web surfers prefer to sell themselves.  In the real world, sales and marketing involves convincing prospects in person or via media to try what you’ve got.  It often includes playing to their emotions to close the deal. 
In the cyber world, there are so many website choices that surfers continue to look for “free stuff” whenever possible.  Without seeing each other face-to-face, it’s harder to play to the prospect’s emotions, so they know
that they have the upper hand in that they can decide against you in one click of a key.

Knowing that they control the situation, your site must offer what they want, not what you think they need.  Design the site from their point of view by providing complete information, answering logical questions, giving written and visual examples, displaying choices (such as colors and other options), displaying testimonials that people can relate to, and providing free samples!  When prospects feel that a website is tailored to their needs, they’ll bookmark it or take the next step towards becoming a customer.

Know your audience
Keep visitors comfortable by designing from their perspective.  Your site should reflect the values of your potential customers.  If they expect instructions or FAQ pages or multiple photos, meet or exceed these expectations. 

When you really prefer that they contact you for certain information (such as pricing or custom specifications) at least guarantee that the details will be provided without sales pressure.  Offering a free or discounted promotional item can also entice them to continue the process.  Give them what they want and they will return for more!