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Who will visit your web site?

What you say on your site and how you present yourself should be specifically tailored to the sort of people you expect to visit your site. Will visitors be existing customers? Or will they tend to be unfamiliar with your product or service? How much explaining do you need to do? Are they international or domestic?

Once you have decided who you are presenting to, make sure your message is relevant and useful. It is often tempting for people to make web sites that appeal to themselves or in ways that they like which will not necessarily be inviting or interesting to the site visitors.

Give the visitor a process, a next step, a way of using the information they have seen to make an enquiry, place an order or contact you in whatever way suits your line of business. This is especially important in areas where the potential client may never have purchased your sort of product or service before, to reassure them about what is involved and make the process as unintimidating as possible.

Look at your competitors’ web sites. How do they address their audience? Imagine yourself in the customers’ shoes and see what sort of an impression the site makes. Can you avoid their mistakes?

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