Important Research You Need To Do Before Designing A Business Website
Building a good quality website is a vital step in the early stages of any business. Most customers use online search as their first port of call when they are looking for a business, so if you don’t have a website that ranks well on Google, you will struggle.
When people find your website, they will immediately make a judgment about your business. If your site is poorly designed and outdated, people will not have much faith in your business. But if they are presented with a modern, stylish website that functions efficiently, they are more likely to stick around. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses miss the mark with their website because they don’t do enough research before they start building it. If you want to make sure that your website gives the right impression and connects well with your target audience, it’s vital that you do your research beforehand. These are some of the areas that you should be looking at.
Your Target Market
The biggest mistake that people make is creating a website without fully understanding who will be using it. Different demographics respond to different things, so you need to know who you are aiming at before you start coming up with any design ideas. For example, younger people that are more technology literate tend to respond well to innovative designs, which might not always be the easiest to navigate. They are already experienced with technology so they may be willing to sacrifice a small amount of usability in exchange for a new online experience. However, if you are trying to target the older generation that may not be as computer literate, simplicity is vital and they won’t respond well to any abstract designs.
Before you think about the website, spend some time researching your target audience and building a clear customer profile so you know exactly who you are trying to reach. You can use existing data about your customers if the business is already up and running, and you should also try to connect with people on social media and invite them to fill out a quick survey. Once you have a good idea of who your target market is, you can start thinking about designs that will appeal to them.
User Experience Research
User experience is one of the most important aspects of website design. If your website is difficult to navigate and it is overcomplicated, that will really put people off. You need people to be able to find the information quickly and easily and ensure that the website functions as it should with crashing or slowing down. If you want to get the user experience right, it’s important to work with a research professional like Userzoom, who specialize in user experience research. They will help to guide your design process by ensuring that good user experience practices are at the center of every decision that you make. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when designing a website is putting style before functionality. They come up with some innovative ideas about the aesthetics of their website but they don’t do any research into how this will impact the user experience. This means that they end up with a website that looks amazing but functions terribly, which is a very quick way to lose potential customers.
Domain Name Research
Choosing the right domain name is important but it can be difficult because a lot of the good options are taken. But finding a domain name that is available is only half the battle and there are a lot of other things that you need to consider.
It’s important that you don’t choose a name that is too similar to another business, especially if they are a competitor. If you do pick something that is only a few letters away from another business, people will end up accidentally going to the wrong site and you could lose a lot of customers. You should also check that the domain name hasn’t been used in the past by a business with a bad reputation. Even if that business has nothing to do with your business, you may still be damaged by the association.
Once you have researched all of those things, you need to think about how long the domain name is and how easy it is to remember. If you go with a very complicated domain name, people won’t remember it and you will lose out on some more potential customers. You can use these great tools to help you research and find the perfect domain name.
Research Your Competition
Before you launch your own website, you need to do some research into your competition. Check out their website and see what kind of features are on there. This is important because customers will often check a few different sites before deciding which business they prefer. If your competitors all have sites that look and perform better and have way more features than you, it’s unlikely that you will generate many leads. You can also see the things that they are getting wrong so you don’t make the same mistakes on your site.
Finding The Right IT Support Team
Once the website is up and running, maintenance is essential. If you don’t update the website and patch problems, you will have issues with pages that don’t load or your website will crash on a regular basis. Website downtime is a big problem because you are losing customers until you can get things back up and running again, which is why it’s vital that you find the right IT support team to maintain your site. When you are researching different IT support companies, it’s important that you consider their experience and find one that offers constant preventative maintenance services. Although cost is a factor, it’s never a good idea to make your decision based on the price alone. The cheapest option is not usually the best, so do your research and be prepared to pay for a professional service.
Carrying out this research before you design and launch your website will help you to ensure that you reach the right audience and your website sends the right message.
