Plan Your Web Site for
Profits
by Leva Duell
Date: Wednesday 5:35 pm
Most businesses fail to
plan for online success. Knowing
your purpose, audience, and uniqueness are the first steps
to developing a successful web site. Follow these three
steps to position your web site for Internet profits.
Step 1: Determine Your
Purpose
The first step in planning
a web site is to determine what
you want to accomplish. Do you want to sell products and
services, find new customers, generate leads, establish
credibility, or improve customer service?
The purpose of your web
site will affect its content and
design. Depending on your goal, you may need an email form,
articles, a sales letter, product information, pictures, a
secure online order form, and a shopping cart.
Step 2: Define Your Ideal
Customers and Their Needs
Many web sites are trying
to attract everybody. Don't make
this mistake. Your web site will be more profitable when
focusing on your ideal prospects who are likely to buy your
products or services. Ask the following questions to create
a profile of your ideal customers.
- Who wants or needs your
products or services?
- What is the age range, gender, profession, industry,
income level, and education of your ideal customers?
- What are your customers' wants, needs, and concerns?
- What problems can you solve for your customers?
- What problems do your products and services solve for
them?
- Why will they come to your site?
- What information do they want?
- Are most of your customers computer literate?
- What computer monitor do they have?
- What software and browser are they using? Do they connect
to the Internet with a slow modem or a fast connection such
as cable or DSL?
After defining your ideal
customers, target your web site's
content, message, and design directly to them. Here are some
examples of how your audience affects the design of your web
site. Make your text large if you're targeting seniors. Use
a conservative design if your prospects are accountants.
Make your design colorful for children. Avoid movies,
sounds, Flash animations, and Java programming if your
customers have slow computers and Internet connections.
To target your content
to your ideal customers, tell right
away what your web site is about and what's in it for them.
If they don't read further, they were not prospects. Attract
your target audience with a benefit-oriented headline and
provide valuable, useful, and interesting information your
prospects are interested in.
Step 3: Demonstrate Your
Uniqueness
Emphasize your uniqueness
to make your web site stand out
and set you apart from your competition. Attract your
audience with a benefit that is different from other web
sites. What is your distinct advantage? What separates you
from your competition? What is distinctive about your offer?
Visiting competing web
sites will give you ideas about
content, design, and features you may need for your web
site. Then develop a site that stands out and distinguishes
you from them.
Answer these questions
to help you formulate your
uniqueness.
- Why should prospects
buy from you instead of your
competitors?
- What are the most important benefits or results your
customers will achieve from your products or services?
- What do you do better than anyone else? Do you possess
hard-to-find or specialized expertise?
- Do you offer a free consultation, initial visit, analysis,
or better advice?
- What makes your products or services better, unique, or
more desirable than your competitors?
- Do you have the lowest prices or the highest quality
products in your industry?
- Do you provide the fastest service, the strongest
guarantee, longest hours, or better follow up?
- Do you keep customers informed with newsletters or
information hotlines?
Determine what makes your
business unique. Then you can
emphasize your uniqueness to make your web site stand out
and set you apart from your competition.
Plan your web site for
profits. Determine what you want to
accomplish with your web site, who your ideal audience is,
and what makes your online business unique. Only after
implementing these steps are you ready to start developing
your web content.
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