It seems like the end of the year is prime time for website design and redesign. We’re getting a lot of inquiries, many of which have one thing in common, they’re not really sure what they want, they just want something better than they currently have. This issue of our newsletter addresses a few things you need to consider and discuss with your website designer. In fact, these are basic questions you’ll need to answer whether you’re putting together a marketing plan for the web, or for offline promotion.

What is the purpose of the site? This is very important to know before you start designing or writing your website. Another way to ask this is “What is this website for?” Is it to introduce your company and its products to the world? To provide customer service to existing clients? To sell products online?

Who is the site for? When designing a website you need to know who is going to be using it. In marketing parlance, this is called your “target market” or “public”. In plain English it’s “who do you want to see your message”. For example, if you are an electrical engineer who wants to get work as an expert witness your “target market” will be attorneys and insurance companies. You should determine your “public” before starting the design, or re-design, and then do some research into the terminology of that public and what kind of websites they like.

What is your goal for the website? What do you expect the website to do? Do you want it to bring in more clients/customers? Double your sales? Stop annoying phone calls asking questions you’ve answered a thousand times? It is important to know what you want and be sure the site is guiding people to do what you want.

How will you measure the sites success? It is important to know, not just hope, your website is working. You should have a measurable way of judging its success. If you sell things, then it should be number of items sold or value of items sold on the web. If it is an information site it could be number of unique visitors to the site. What ever it is, you need to have a way to measure success and design the site to produce that measure.

Can you state, in 20 seconds or less, precisely what your company does? If you suddenly found yourself on an elevator with the prospect you’ve been trying to get an appointment with for months and have only the elevator ride to convince him that your company is the one he really wants to do business with, what would you say? In marketing, this is called the “Elevator Pitch”. On the web, it’s called the “10 Second Rule”. When someone comes to your website you have 10 seconds to let them know they have arrived at the right place and that they should stay and check the site out.

What features are needed to achieve your site goal? Once you have determined what you want your site to be and do for you, you need to decide how best to make it do what you want. This is something you need to discuss with your website designer. A good designer knows what can be done to help a website achieve the goals set for it.

So if you’re thinking about a redesign, or a whole new site, start thinking about these questions. If you need help with any of them, or need a good web designer to talk to about them, feel free to call CityCenter Co. at (626) 499-0100.

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