by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media
In this series we are looking at website design to generate conversions. In the last article we talked about designing with an objective in mind and knowing and finding your target audience. This week we are going to look at designing a website for a particular audience.
For example, we know that visitors to XstremeMedia.com tend to be business owners or business management, somewhat technically savvy and better educated. This insight influences various aspects of our site design, content and marketing. We know what topics they react to and what content influences them to contact us and return to our site. It is extremely useful to know who your visitors are so your content speaks to them and doesn't turn them away.
Your analytics account, such as Google Analytics is also very useful in providing information such as what keyword or phrase did they use to find your site, what site they visited prior to coming to yours, what type of browser are they using, do they have dial-up or broadband, visited from a mobile device, etc. This type of information is know as technographics and can be very valuable as well when designing a website. For example, how many of your visitors used a mobile device to access your site? If there were several, then you many want to look at designing a mobile website for your business.
Next week we will look at "Designing for Source" meaning looking at what was the source of your visitor and what type of content do they expect.
In this series we are looking at website design to generate conversions. In the last article we talked about designing with an objective in mind and knowing and finding your target audience. This week we are going to look at designing a website for a particular audience.
Designing for Audience
Online tools have made significant advancements in helping business owners understand their audience (target market). They can see how old they are, where they are from, how much money they make, their education level etc. There are free tools such as Quantcast, that provide this type of visitor information. Quantcast goes a step further in helping you find your audience. Most of the information they provide is relatively accurate.For example, we know that visitors to XstremeMedia.com tend to be business owners or business management, somewhat technically savvy and better educated. This insight influences various aspects of our site design, content and marketing. We know what topics they react to and what content influences them to contact us and return to our site. It is extremely useful to know who your visitors are so your content speaks to them and doesn't turn them away.
Your analytics account, such as Google Analytics is also very useful in providing information such as what keyword or phrase did they use to find your site, what site they visited prior to coming to yours, what type of browser are they using, do they have dial-up or broadband, visited from a mobile device, etc. This type of information is know as technographics and can be very valuable as well when designing a website. For example, how many of your visitors used a mobile device to access your site? If there were several, then you many want to look at designing a mobile website for your business.
Next week we will look at "Designing for Source" meaning looking at what was the source of your visitor and what type of content do they expect.
