Web sites are for Your Audience, Not for You

Web sites are for Your Audience, Not for You

Word Count:

416

Summary:

Remember when designing or revamping a web site, stay focused on what your audience is after. Don't stray into making a site that touts yourself and what you are about. Focus on your audience.

Keywords:

web design, HTML, audience

Article Body:

It is easy to forget that building a web site is a process of bringing about solutions to your end-user's problems (as in, how can I help my customers find my store? By adding a map to the web site). Many people create their web site with only their own goals in mind. This is a big mistake. People don't care about how neat your site is, or how much Flash you have developed, or the intricate JavaScript that you hand-coded. They are interested in getting their problems solved, and solved quickly.

So here are some tips on how you can make sure your site is based on your user's goals. First, find out what your users goals are. Find a sampling of people who are typical end users and email or call them. Politely ask them the kind of questions that will elicit useful feedback on their goals when they come to your site (for example, what are the three things you want above all when you visit our site?). If you already have a site, ask them what things do they find challenging about the site. This is an ideal chance to identify and fix things as well.

As you actually create (or update) your web site, again keep the end user's goals in mind and make sure that they can get to the information quickly and easily. Nothing is more annoying than finding a site that has exactly what you are after and then be unable to purchase the item! The process of designing a site so it is easy to use is far harder than it looks at first. Usability, as it is called, is an entire realm of study when it comes to web sites. But in general, make sure users can navigate (that is, click around) to the most important features of your site easily. Do you offer a free tutorial on how to use your shareware software? Make sure you have a link to it on your navigation bar or at least prominently displayed on the home page. A pleasing design can go hand in hand with usability. However, it you are not a whiz at web design, then don't fret. A simple design that lets users navigate to their intended goal is far more preferable to a gorgeous site that people can't navigate. So make it look as attractive as possible but usability should always come first.

And remember, the site is for your audience... not for you.

Know Your Audience

Know Your Audience

Word Count:

316

Summary:

Designing a web site is hard enough. You spend countless hours working on how it is going to look and what cool specials effects it is going to have. You even spent hours picking out your site colors. So now what?

Keywords:

webdesign, promoting

Article Body:

Designing a web site is hard enough. You spend countless hours working on how it is going to look and what cool specials effects it is going to have. You even spent hours picking out your site colors. So now what?

Now you have to promote it. But how? There are many ways. You can submit them to search engines, join a pay per click advertising program and link exchanges. Of these link exchanges are the ones most picked, mainly because they are free. But do they work.

According to the emails that keep coming into my inbox, link exchange is dead. The big search engines know what they are about. Back scratching. You link to me and I will link to you. It does not help your SEO or your quest to be #1 on Google or Yahoo. But it does give you awareness to the people you exchanged links to. And this can be helpful.

I believe there is no one way to get your site ranked number one with anyone. But I do think if you plan your strategy correctly and use all of the tools available to you, you can get what you are looking for. You designed your site and you know what your audience is looking for. You may even know where your audience is.

So just because you hear certain marketing methods are dead, don’t give up hope and sell your domain name. Use the normal process to get ranked among the big boys and use you link exchanges for awareness to you targeted audience.

About The Author

Michael is currently growing his new venture as editor of Christian InTech. Michael spends most of his time gathering technical articles and information for his site. You can find his site at http://www.christianintech.com.

This article is allowed for reproduction as long as the links are included. © 2005 Christian InTech