Nobody Wants a Website
Why do you want a website? Because everyone else has one? That's a really terrible reason. Websites are really tools to accomplish a goal. Too many companies set out to build a website without fully thinking this through.
Let me give you an example.
At company A there is general consensus that the website that was built in 1997 is way out-of-date as no one has changed anything in 5 years. A budget is put together and a marketing person is put in charge of finding someone to build a new website. After all, everyone else is building new websites so clearly this company needs a new one as well.
The company asks itself, "What do we want in a new website?" It then starts putting together a list of ideas they have for the new website. Lots of people have ideas of what they want, plus they should have this new social thingy as well. They hire a company like LevelTen to help them.
We go through a process where the company picks what colors they like, what mood board they like and what design and layout they want. We help them write the copy they want around the keywords they picked out.
In the end we give them the site they wanted but not the site they needed.
So where did this process go wrong?
Really right at the beginning. The question that was asked was, "What does company A want in their new website?" That is the wrong question. They aren't building the website for themselves. They are building for their customer. The question that should have been asked is, "What do Company A's customers want in the company's new website?"
They don't really want a new website. What they want is to accomplish some goal. Often this is engaging their customer or selling more products online. In order to do this you need to make a website for your customer, not for your organization.
By starting the process thinking about the customer, continuing the process thinking about the customer and ending the process thinking about the customer you can finally create a website that the customer actually wants.
Think about the design process for a minute. Often times we start with a mood board. How does your mood board get chosen? Does a committee get together and try and pick some colors that they like the best? Is there a HiPPO (highest paid person's opinion) in the room who makes the decision?
Why not do customer research and decide which colors best serve your company's purposes? What if the color of the site could increase sales from 5% to 10%? Would this be an important part to get right? Of course!
Many people don't realize how important so many of these decisions really are but they make them on guesswork and intuition. While it's possible to get the choice right by intuition, the chances of failure are too great to risk it.
Every aspect of the website should be selected and designed to maximize the goals of the website whether that is total number of readers, signing up for a newsletter or selling a particular product.
So what aspects should be tested against your customers before you make your decisions?
All of the following:
- Colors
- Mood board
- Design
- Layout
- Images
- Targeted Keywords
- Website Copy
- Features (Blog, Forum, News, etc)
- Page Titles
- Meta Information
