Is your website projecting the right image to the right audience?
Let’s assume, to begin, that you are a startup, or, better yet, an established Fortune 500 Company, well known in the brick and mortar world, you’ve been around ‘forever’. The world is your oyster and you are in complete control (so you think).
But suddenly a paradigm shift occurs. A new reality; a whole new world begins to emerge in an unexpected dimension that is encroaching on the world you knew so well. This invading reality is redefining YOUR reality in ways you don’t welcome or understand. Things appear to be slipping away. What to do now? Embrace the changes’ or resist them?
This new invader of your known world is called “The World-wide Web.” Resistance to it would be futile and self-destructive. So you decide, rightly, to embrace it and to make it work for you. But how?
The first thing you need is a web presence, that is, a website. But not just a website, but a dynamic, eye-opening, attention-getting WEBSITE that will grab hold of your targeted audience, keep them there, and end up convincing them that they should buy your product. In short, your website should be your #1 salesperson!
Now What?
In preparation for your project launch, you probably did what most companies do when they have decided to go onto the web. You got your full staff of executive decision makers together and in one or more meetings hashed out the details of what your site should look like, how it should function, how the navigation should work and what technologies should be employed in its creation. Having done all of the above, you feel confident that getting your website online will be a piece of cake. After all, didn’t you and your staff do 90% of the work? Now it’s time to call in a professional web developer to put the finishing touches on YOUR plan. So you call them in and tell THEM exactly what THEY should do.
Wait A While, Something’s Missing
Hold it! I know you’re very excited about your project and anxious to get it up and running, but the sad truth is that at this point you’ve already shot yourself in the foot. And if you’re too enamored of your consensus on the what/how details for the project, you’ll probably do significant damage to it and to your company if you proceed now. How can that be? The fact is, you have left out of the picture the most important ingredient in your recipe for success — those who will actually use the site: your targeted audience. Your targeted audience must be the driving force behind any web project.
Give Up Ownership of the Website
Strange as it may seem; your own individual preferences are largely irrelevant to a successful web project. Yes, you need to communicate your needs and preferences to the design and development team of your project, but you need to then let go of those preferences and place no arbitrary, predetermined value on them. You need to be able to let the needs of your site’s users take precedence over your own. You also need to trust in the experience and talents of the design team to appropriately articulate your brand through the website.
The designer and developer’s individual preferences are also largely irrelevant. But if they are a savvy team, they already know this. A really good design team has the expertise to translate your needs and especially those of your site visitors’ into design, layout and function that will best represent your company and your brand to those who really count: your customer base.
So, rather than approaching a web project from the standpoint of your own preferences because you think you own the site, instead, take the approach that the USERS own the site. Go to work for them. Work to make them happy. Work to make things easy, intuitive and memorable for them. Work to reinforce or enhance their level of confidence in your brand and your company.
Trust Your Designer
In order to be able to effectively represent and communicate for a client online, the designer must be allowed the freedom to be creative. Studies show that, often, the most successful design work comes from projects with the highest degree of client/designer confidence. Trust is worth its weight in gold in any design project. Remember, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. The task of designing a web page and/or website to work properly for the client’s aims, the client’s purpose, the client’s identity, and especially for the user, is one filled with multiple opportunities for success and, similarly, for grave missteps.
Just as a composer can communicate sadness or joy in music, a painter can communicate confusion on the canvas, an actor can communicate a myriad of emotions without speaking, so too the web designer can through layout, form, color, and design communicate his/her artistry on a web page, provided he/she is given free rien to do so.
You Are Now Ready for the Plunge
With all of the above in mind, you are now ready to take the plunge. A legitimate objective has now taken shape. This objective, or mission statement, describes exactly what you want the website to do in a single clearly articulated sentence.
Time to Strategize
Your strategy will define how you are to achieve the objective you have just developed. When it is finished, the strategy will outline the Who, What, and Why of the website.
The formation of strategy is not one of the most popular aspects of web development, but it should be. Strategy narrows the focus and purpose of a project to make it as effective as possible. Strategy helps contain the scope of work, direct the content creation process, and provide tactical direction to information architects. It also allows designers to truly design rather than merely paint pretty pictures, and it keeps developers focused on the right features. Once the website has launched, the strategy will help market the site through Search Engine Marketing (SEM) , Search Engine Optimization ( SEO), and a host of other enhancement processes.A simple strategy can be adopted to help all ranges and types of websites. Both large and small companies can use strategy to determine how best to educate new users about their products to make purchasing easy. Similarly, non-profits can identify a sub-set of particularly generous contributors to create a section of their website that appeals to this audience. A good web strategy helps to enhance and clarify the whole business goal.
The Results
Finally, it’s time to get specific. We must now measure every new idea against our strategy to see how each fits. Some questions to be answered are: How do the site architecture and navigation support the focus of the site? How does the design appeal to the target audience? Will the design funnel users onto the path laid out in the site strategy?
Strategy brings focus to the project and serves as a framework for all the components that comprise a website: copywriting, design, development and marketing.
