Test It Out

So you've tested out your site, and you think your market niche looks like it might work as a web business. Now what do you do? Don't do what most small business people do, which is start looking for a web designer to put your site together. I'm not saying that web designers don't do a good job - many do. But the crucial part of your website is to bring your knowledge of your product area, knowledge of your customers wants and needs, and your passion to your website.

If you turn it over to a web designer at this point, you will probably just get a site that is a catalog of your products - and this isn't going to distinguish your site from any of your competitors. So take the time, instead, to really start thinking about what sort of special vision you have for your website. This is probably the most crucial part of putting together a small business website - bringing your unique vision to your website may well make or break it.

Don't get scared by this challenge - I'm not talking about figuring out the visual look for the site, how the specific navigation will work, or other design aspects. We will work on these later, and any good designer can help you implement these.

Instead, I'm talking about thinking long and hard about what content you want and the type of customer experience you want to bring to the site. My sites are always focused on one thing - trying to design the best customer experience possible.

So I think long and hard about what my customers are looking for when they are searching on the web, they type of information they may want and how best to give them this information, how to make the site flow so it will be easy to find this information quickly, what types or products and pricing makes sense for this customer base, etc. etc. It is through this process that you will bring your unique experience and passion to your site - what I call a site's unique "voice".

Start with Understanding your Customers Wants and Needs.

Where do you start in coming up with this broad vision of how your website will work? I always start with trying to deeply understand what the customers wants and needs. Once I have a good understanding of these issues I find that the broad outlines of the site usually become apparent.

For example, when I was designing the Simply Wagons site, I spent a lot of time talking with the Radio Flyer customer service people. Since I really didn't know anything about the children's wagon business, I wanted to hear about their experiences with customers.

I probably spent 20 hours or so with them learning about what the customers questions and concerns were - and this gave me the focus on how to design the site. The Radio Flyer customer service reps (who had never before been contacted by any other Internet company) told me that customers really wanted help in picking out the right wagon for their needs - and in distinguishing between similar sorts of wagons.

So I spent a great deal of time coming up with a guide to picking out the right wagon, comparison charts, etc. No other site has this kind of information, and I think the reason is that they have a sales oriented view of their website. Other sites see the wagons as a product to sell, where as I saw the wagons from the customer perspective - and this helped me understand the how to design the content areas of the site in a very different, more customer friendly manner.

I try to do this approach in all my sites, and that is one reason why each site has a different feel even though they all use variations of the same two basic layouts I have designed. The Futon Covers site is centered around trying to give people an easy way to find just the perfect cover. We had heard from customers that they just couldn't easily navigate other futon cover sites to find the right cover. And when they did finally find a cover, often the descriptions weren't very good and the pictures of the covers either weren't too good or didn't give them a very good feel for how the cover would look on a full futon couch.

I spent hours and hours thinking about how to better address these concerns. How the covers could be best group the covers in sensible categories, how to then show these cover categories in a way so that people could quickly see what was available, how to then best show the range of covers on each category page, and finally how to best give people detailed pages on each individual cover (detailed description, pictures of the cover on a futon couch, etc) so that people could really get a good idea of the look and feel of the cover.

And we decided to offer swatches because people if people then wanted to get a sample before deciding on the right cover. Finally, we decided to add a Futon 101 section to help people understand how to choose the best fitting cover for their futon couch. It was a lot of work to do all this. And most sites simply put up a swatch graphic and call it a day. But we decided it was important to do all these things to meet the customers needs - and the success of the site I think is due to this customer centered approach.

I could go on with other examples, but the important point is that each site's content design should flow from a deep understanding of what your customer's needs and wants are. And since a web designer would have no idea about this, this part of the design is your job.

Do it right, and you have a good chance of success. Don't do it and leave it to the designer, and you will have one more cookie cutter website, that may look very nice, but won't be nearly as effective as one which would have reflected your unique experience and knowledge.

A site designed in this way not only serves your customers better, but by its nature brings your own personal "voice" to the website. And believe me, this is really a key - people want to buy from a business they feel comfortable with.

Getting involved in your site will give you site a heft, a presence that your customers will feel - and this will stand in stark contrast to the cold, impersonal feel of most of your competitor's sites. It is your edge - and it is one that can consistently make the difference between success and failure.

Here's What you Should Try to Accomplish

So start thinking - and don't stop till you have a good understanding of your customers wants and needs and how to address them. You should come away from this process with the outlines of your website fairly well defined.

You will know what areas you need to address, and how you feel the best way to address them. Think about how this will be reflected on your home page - what information your customers will want to see quickly so that they can find the areas of your site they are interested in.

You need to think about these specific content areas on your site - how they should then be organized so that people can find the information they are looking for. If a flow chart helps you with this then fine - because that is what you are looking for, which is how customers will flow through your site.

You want to make is seem effortless, that they will easily find their way from your home page to all the information they are interested in. And then you need to start filling in this outline with detail - not necessarily actual written copy at this point, but fill in the types of information you want to address on these different pages on your site.

So list the different aspect of your home page, the information you will want to include in all the pages linking off the home page, and also the information that you will want to include on sub pages of these category pages. I often wrestle for a time with how to get all this organized into a good flow, but after awhile I just kind of get a feel for the flow of the site.

Hopefully you will also - you will need to come up with a good idea of how your site will be organized in order to give your customers a good experience. But the vital thing is that they site should flow from your customers wants and needs, and if you spend the time to figure this out you will really have the basic ingredients you need to have a successful website.

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