Questions You Must Answer Before Your Website Goes Live

If you've already got a website and you don't know how effective it is, or perhaps you've finally decided to use a website to grow your business, you'll need to answer a few questions before you can have any chance of success online. An effective online presence requires forethought and planning. The questions that follow will help your website be successful.

-What is the goal of your website? Is it to generate sales, educate consumers, gather leads, or something entirely different? Your website design is completely dependent on your online marketing goals.

-Who is your target audience? You must target the language, pictures, and content of your website towards your target audience. Don't assume everyone has the same level of understanding that you do.

- What is your traffic funnel for your site? Once someone finds your homepage, where do you want them to go next? This question is related to a different question, in that your website's goal will determine the preferred traffic pattern for your site. Whatever your goal, make your website navigation simple and clear. Fancy animated links are occasionally confusing, and the search engines hate them.

- Does your website call people to take action? Unless your site is purely informational, the visitors to your site will need to be urged to take action- buy now, click here, sign up now. Whatever it is, make sure you are directing your visitors to take action. Otherwise, they will most likely just click wander and click away from your site.

- How will you know if your website is being successful? You will need specific metrics in place to measure whether or not your site is working for your business. Again, this goes back to a different question: What is the goal of your website? If you know your goal, you should be able to measure it. This way you will be able to determine future changes for your website as both your traffic and your business grows.

It doesn't matter if you are doing all your own website work or if you are paying a website professional to do the work for you. You need solid answers to these questions before you start implementing a website into your marketing plans. The better answers you have to these questions, the better your website will be able to help your business grow.

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