web design

4 steps toward success

design goals

The Four Steps Towards a Successful Web Site.

To avoid the most common site pitfalls, and to help you  gauge what level of service you should have for your company, you'll need to answer four simple questions.

• Why will my site exist?
• Who am I trying to reach?
• Will visitors find what they need when they reach my site?
• Will they return?

1. Why will my site exist? A simple enough question, but a very important one.  Are you building a web site to promote your company, to provide customer service, to sell online, to reach new customers, or all of the above?

2. Who am I trying to reach? Analyze your target audience in terms of their attitudes, existing knowledge, and motives.  Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and ask yourself:

• "What information do I need to make a decision?"
• "What are the pressing problems I'm seeking solutions to?"
• "What obstacles must I overcome to get the response I'm after?"

Your answers to these questions will help you determine the information you need to provide the right content for your web site.

3. Will Visitors find what they need?  Time is valuable commodity when surfing the web and making someone struggle to find information will only result in someone who will not return.  Company information should be easy to find.  Provide a navigation menu on every page which links to the main areas of your site.  Try including an internal search engine to speed up the process.  Most importantly, decide exactly what content should be included.  If you think from the perspective of your visitor, you should be able to easily identify their needs.

4. Will they return? A site should be updated frequently.  Most Web site administrators update their sites at least once a week.  Keeping a site updated and refreshed is key for companies that expect visitors to return.  There is so much action on the Web that it's tempting for visitors to jump somewhere more exciting if your company's site bores them.