Design Your Marketing Website

Your Target Audience will dictate the look and feel of your website's design.  Optimize the design of your website to communicate your key objectives, reflected in videos, photos, graphics and text elements. 

Purpose

Before creating your website, it is important to take the time to plan exactly what you need. Thoroughly consider your audience or target market.  It is extremely important to define your website's purpose and decide what content will be developed.  A clearly defined purpose statement will focus the design and help the planning process, as the audience is identified and the content of the site is developed.  A purpose statement will show what the website will accomplish and what the users will get from it.  Setting short and long term goals for the website will help make the purpose clear and guide plans for the future, when expansion, modification, and improvement will take place.

Audience

Defining your audience is a key step in your website planning process. These people will view your website for a specific reason and it is important to know exactly what they are looking for. To consider who is most likely to need or use your content, refer to:

    * Audience Characteristics
    * Information Preferences
    * Computer Specifications
    * Web Experience

Taking into account the characteristics of the audience will allow an effective website to be created that will deliver the desired content.

Content

With the purpose of the website clearly defined, collect a list of the necessary content, then organize it according to your audience's needs.  Any items that do not support the defined purpose, or do not accomplish target audience objectives, should be removed.  Test your content and purpose on a focus group, and compare the results to your audience needs.

Organize your information into categories and according to user needs. Each category should be named with a concise and descriptive title that will become a link on the website. Planning for your site's content ensures that the wants or needs of your target audience will be fulfilled.

Information For Your Website: