Whom to Present: Make sure you know who is the audience you want to target
This is a common problem as it is always tempting to reach all possible audiences. Avoid this trap for the following reasons:
1. The website becomes difficult to search (You need to show up on the first page).
2. You will need too many keywords to accommodate all that is covered in the website as different audience search on the basis of different parameters.
3. The homepage becomes far too cluttered, or you have too many landing pages to contend with.
4. All this invariably takes its toll on the size of the website (the sitemap) and thus the loading time.
The simpler you keep, the easier it is to make your website searchable for someone who does not know you.
This is an important consideration. You need to know how unique you are.
If your website is meant for something generic (like ceiling fans) then your focus should be on search-ability parameters, so that your website comes up on the first page. A search on “ceiling fans online” produces 1.8 Million options.
On the other hand, if you are unique enough, then you don’t have to bother so much about being searchable. Wimbledon does not require to be SEO friendly, as it is much too unique to battle for being searched. In fact, they have just about a good SEO.
What to Present: Have clarity of what you want your audience to see
You should now build the clarity of what the audience wants to see when they reach your home page. That sets the tone of the interaction and the time spent in exploring your site.
1. A good SEO helps bring someone to the website, however bringing in only part of the answer.
2. You will want the visitor to spend time on your site. Technically this points to bounce rates and page views.
3. You will need to think through as to what your customers would be looking for when they come to the website and focus on those items, keeping other information in the background. I have seen more than one website that is talking about the Chairman and his dynamism. It always has the highest bounce rate, yet company after company continue to persist in promoting the Chairman and not what the customer could be looking for.
4. Ask your service provider to give page-wise visits to get some pointers on what to focus and what to de-focus.
5. A good source of customer's voice can be your Marketing and Sales team.
How engaging would you want your website to be
There are several options available in presenting a website
1. You may like to present information about the company, for example, you wish to present the quarterly or annual data in an attractive way, but this kind of data is static data and is really meant for a closed group of people. Searchability reduces for static websites.
2. The next level is when you want to remain searchable as your potential customers are wide-spread and you would like to remain on top of the search. You can achieve this by constantly providing newer information on your website and updating the search parameters.
3. At the highest level, you could have a website that constantly engages its customers through various means. This makes sense for companies whose product line changes frequently.
Each of these scenarios requires back-end support of different levels. Based on the number of resources you plan to provide, the nature of the business, choose the type of website you should have.
How large a website you want
It is always tempting to give a lot of information on a website. This is largely true for large companies and conglomerates. Even not so large companies who have various product lines can fall victim to this temptation. It makes sense to keep the following in your perspective:
1. Large websites have their inherent problem, such as slow loading. In addition, if there are several ‘lazy loads’ like a video, or latest stock value blurb etc., all that slows down the loading. Research says that the optimum speed the optimum load time is 2 seconds or below, and most visitors will abandon the site if it takes 3 sec or more.
2. The second problem with large websites is maintaining the consistency of the style, especially for changes over time. Inconsistent styles have an impact on the brand
3. Large websites also have an impact on being mobile ready.
Hence it is an important consideration that requires being debated on how large the website should you have.
What is your plan for the Social Media with your website
Today a website is a part of the overall ecosystem of the Digital Marketing environment. You need to have clarity on which of the elements of the eco-system you want to be integrated with the website as also how aggressively you will want to become searchable over the Net.
The objective is to bring traffic to your website for further action on your part. Consider the following points while discussing this area.
1. It will depend upon how widespread is your client-base, how dispersed they are and your knowledge of their social media habits. The knowledge of the customer behavior is crucially important especially when you are dealing with social media.
2. Different mediums have their own interfacing norms. A specialist will be able to help with this data. With this knowledge, ask internally how you will be able to remain active on various social media platforms.
3. At the same time, you must also make an assessment of the resources you will require to manage the multiple streams of input. The last thing that you will want is to ignore a query/input from the client because the team that is responsible is not adequate for the task.
Conclusion
These are the five important parameters that you need to keep in mind. Believe me, it is not as overwhelming as it may appear.
Beyond this, if you need help in deciding on your website, send me a message. I enjoy helping.
