http://marketingsource.com/articles/ Articles at marketingsource.com Articles Library en-us http://marketingsource.com/articles/customer-service/planning-a-usable-website.html http://marketingsource.com/articles/customer-service/planning-a-usable-website.html Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:28:41 -0500

Business Goals:


When planning any website, it is vital to consider what you are looking to achieve as a business in the next 24 months. If you are clear in your own mind what you want to achieve as a business, then you can begin to consider how a website will help you achieve this.
To draw out your business goals consider the following questions:

• Do you want to grow your business? If so, by how much?


• Do you want to reduce costs? If so, where, and by how much?


• Do you want to improve efficiency?


• Do you want to improve customer service?


• Do you want to launch a new product?

Objectives for your Website:


If you are to measure the success of your website it is vital to develop a set of website objectives. A website should support your overall business goals, so consider how your website will help you achieve your business goals stated above. Consider the following questions (and any others appropriate to your business):

Do you want to sell more to existing customers? If so, how much more? How much of this will be through your website?

Do you want to acquire new customers? If so, how many?

Do you want to target new markets? If so, what are these markets?

Do you want to sell online? If so, how much revenue do you want to generate?

Do you want to reduce your marketing costs? If so, where, and by how much?

Create an information flow:

An information flow that their site visitors might go on could look something like this:

• Homepage


• Portfolio


• Client testimonials


• Company background


• Staff bios


• Terms & conditions


• Good web design tips


• Contact us

The web design company's ultimate goal is for site visitors to contact them and request their services. Whenever users are in this flow, they must be able to easily and immediately jump straight to the contact page at any point.


When a visitor comes to a site, they come with questions and are seeking answers:

• Can I trust this company?


• Do they do good work? Are their products affordable? Can they get my job done?


• Where can I sign up, reserve, buy, call or learn more?

Through careful website planning and design, you want to have all of these bases covered. Your site should answer these questions quickly and then direct the user to a place that calls for action - a purchase, filling out a contact form, signing up for your newsletter, etc.




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