The time has come to design your website or address the delicate issue of restyling. Where to start? Is it a good idea to take a cue from other sites?
Surely you want the site to be beautiful and reflect your business. Browsing through galleries of examples can certainly help you, but to create a professional site it is not enough to think only about its design. There are many factors that can affect the success of the project. This is why we need a methodical and scientific approach that helps to radiograph your business. No header, in short, or creativity with loose reins. We must study the most effective communication strategy, keeping in mind the dynamics of the web.
So I propose a small questionnaire of 6 questions to acquire the necessary information to design a professional website, a valid communication tool that helps to promote your business and the services of your company.
1. What is your business?
It may have seemed a foregone question, but it is essential that the answer be immediate and clear. What services your company offers or explaining what you do will help to define the position you will cover in the online offerings. Keep in mind that the threshold of attention has drastically reduced in recent years by touching 8 seconds. This means that people will get an idea by acquiring information quickly, perhaps by giving a quick glance to your homepage and then, if they consider it appropriate, in the services or products section. If they can find the information they are looking for without too much effort, you will have earned potential customers.
2. Who are your customers?
It is essential to know those to whom you will sell your products and services so that communication is linear and without filters. Every type of clientele to which you address, however, has its own communicative approach. For this reason it is useful to identify the so-called buyer personas. Prototypes of customers of which we know not only their age, provenance and work activity. They are the representation of real people, with their load of aspirations and fears, whose complexity escapes the classic definitions of targets.
3. What is your strength?
Online we really find everything and in the midst of such a vast offer it becomes increasingly difficult to get the right amount of attention. For this reason it is right to highlight the strength of your company. The customer must immediately contact this element to distinguish you from the competition. You can insert it in the slogan of your company or in the description of your flagship product.
4. How much do you know about your competition?
Analyzing the competition helps you to get the pulse of the situation, a first yardstick to plan your next moves online. Check if your competitors have a website. Maybe you might find that some companies, very strong at the local level, are completely absent online or that their presence is not proportional to their real turnover. Then on Google you do a general search for the services you offer. This way you can analyze the results that users have available.
5. What can you do on your site?
The website is an integral part of your communication strategy and must be designed to play an active role. For example, the website presents your company, but once a visitor arrives on your page, what would you like to do? In fact we speak of conversions that is to say of all those actions that the user has the possibility to do. To be clear, you might want a user:
- Fill out a contact form;
- Buy a product;
- Download information material;
- Share some information on social media.
6. What goals do you want to achieve?
There is no need to call Tony Robbins into question and to review your mental approach to life. Think, for example, of something concrete that can bring you an advantage in terms of turnover or notoriety. You may want to increase the visibility of your business locally. A first goal that would result in an increase in customers. The next step could be to focus on other markets even outside the borders of your region.
Before choosing any color, image and layout of the site you would like for your company, consider the project as a whole. These are just basic questions, but fundamental for the design of a professional website. From these will achieve the study that touches on various aspects such as graphics, word processing, communication, photography … It’s a long way to the top to have a good website!
