|
 Web
Site Strategy
How to formulate your web site design strategy?
Website design strategy
is
the process by which to optimise your
website to take advantage of the
opportunities in the external environment,
whilst addressing the threats that are
likely to impact on it.
Formulating a
website design strategy
is
very important to the success of your
website. By laying out your strategy at the
start, even before choosing a domain name,
can save months, even years of redesign and
wasted promotion efforts.
Even if your site is already established,
there are a number of basics that need to be
questioned to ensure you are heading in the
right direction. The answers to these
questions will form the basis for your web
design strategy.
What is
your Purpose?
Firstly, what is the purpose of your site?
Is it a marketing tool, a shopping cart to
enable online sales, or both? What are your
objectives? Why are you publishing he web
site?
Secondly, what are your strengths and
weaknesses? if you were in your visitor's
"shoes", would you buy from the site and
what would make you return?
Thirdly, how is your income going to be
generated? Will it be from advertising, from
site membership fees, from affiliate
programs, or from selling your own product?
What are your capabilities and how will you
use them to maintain a competitive advantage
over your rivals?
The answers to the above will determine your
content strategy and this in turn will have
implications for all other aspects of your
web site design.
What is the
Purpose of your Website?
Most websites serve one main purpose - they
are either
informational or they are
e-commerce sites.
Informational sites
usually make their income from membership
fees, advertising, commissions, or selling
at the back end.
E-commerce sites
usually make their income by selling a
product or service.
It is often difficult to combine both into
the same website because an
informational site
needs to
provide unbiased information about the topic
of the website, while an
e-commerce site
needs to
generate sales and use direct marketing
tactics.
The main objective of informational sites
therefore needs to be to maximize your site
membership, or your subscriber list. Site
usage could be regarded as the internet's
equivalent of intangible assets.
The more
information the site gathers about its
subscribers, the more valuable the list is
because it allows marketing to be targeted at
specific groups of people, defined by where they
live, how much they earn, whether they are male
or female, and so on.
However it is also VERY important that any
subscriber list is entirely opt-in because
they want information from you.
Your objectives must therefore be:
1) Clear
focused and specific
2) Measurable
3)
Feasible and suitable for the industry you
are focusing on.
What is your web site like for others?
Always put yourself in your
website visitor's "shoes".
If you were the
website visitor, what would
keep you on the site. What makes your site
sticky?
By doing this you can easily identify your
strengths and weaknesses!
The more focused your site it, the more
likely you are to satisfy your visitors
requirements, and the more likely they are
to return and use your site in future.
The layout and navigation of your web pages
are going to affect the usability of your
site. It is very important to get these
right and to know which
web technologies
to use.
Your
website layout
and
navigation can make or break your site.
Even more important is your Content strategy
because you need to provide content that is
likely to be targeted at your visitors. Are
you providing the content your visitors are
looking for?
How
is your income generated?
Informational sites
usually generate their revenue from
membership fees, advertising, commissions
from affiliate programs and making sales to
their members or subscribers using
off-the-web marketing, for example through a
newsletter or direct mail. Selling is the
secondary objective.
The main objective of an
e-commerce site
is to
promote an effective marketing message and
to make the buying process as easy as
possible. Creating a marketing base is the
secondary objective. They usually have two
types of customers, transactional and
relational.
The purchase decisions of transactional
customers are influenced by short-term
reasons such as price, convenience, and/or
availability.
Relational customers have built up a
relationship with the business usually
through previous contact. Their purchase
decisions are based more on the customer
relationship that has been built up, quality
of support, and knowledge of the product or
service or brand.
You need to identify where your market is
and what your capabilities are. You need to
identify what gives you a competitive
advantage over your rivals.
Once you have done that you will be able to
generate qualified traffic, turn the traffic
into qualified leads, and turn the leads
into customers.
Your
website strategy
is
therefore critical to the success of your
site. It must be focused, to ensure your
site is visible and attracts qualified
leads, and your web pages must be usable to
ensure you can convert your traffic.
|
