Tweet

Why Thinking of Your Website as a Journey rather than just a Destination will lead to Better Website Results

Guest post by: Allan Kent

Article Overview: Although getting people to your website is important, the key element in getting your website to work effectively for you is to ensure that the experience the website visitor has when they get there is a great one, meeting all their needs. But how do you manage the user experience (UE)? This article looks at how thinking of your website as a journey in itself and planning according to this idea can lead to better website results. The Yellow Brick Road from the famous Wizard of Oz has been used as the inspiration in this example.

Why Thinking of Your Website as a Journey rather than just a Destination will lead to Better Website Results

During website strategy meetings, I always ask clients what their number one goal is for their website. Probably 50% of the answers I get are; "To increase the number of visitors to the site!" Now that's not a bad thing in itself - after all, no matter how good a site, if no one ever visits it, how can it perform?

However, it's important to look further than simply getting people to your site; what they do there is what really matters. This is governed by the experience they have on the site - known as ‘User Experience' (UE).

In actual fact, the UE can be likened to a journey, and for the sake of this example, let's imagine your site as the famous Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of OZ!

Where is the Journey to?

The first and most important thing you need to determine is the end destination, and this comes down to the purpose of your website.

Some of the possibilities include:

• Making a purchase online (if yours is an e commerce site)

• Encouraging people to visit your showroom, retail outlets, or your distribution channel

• Contacting you for a quote or an appointment with a sales person

• Signing up to your newsletter so you can push out more marketing to them

As you can see, there need not be just one final destination and indeed it may be that travellers have to meet several destinations before reaching the final one. For example they may need to first sign up for a newsletter, or down load a catalogue before committing to actually doing business with you.

Determining Who the Travellers Are

Once you are clear on the objectives/destinations for your site, the next thing is to consider the travellers.

If you can't remember, the characters on the Yellow Brick Road were Dorothy, accompanied by the Lion, The Tin Man and the Scarecrow. If these were your website visitors, are they all going to be your target market? Unlikely, probably only one of them is going to be - based on the 80/20 rule (80% of your business coming from 20% of your target or client base). The others will either be very much secondary audiences, or not your target audience altogether.

Let's imagine Dorothy as your primary target - after all, I think that she's the only one who had a clear idea about the end result she wanted! To give her what she wants you need to know what things appeal to her and get her excited, what things turn her away.

As described earlier, she may not head straight for the end destination you want her to reach, so give her stepping stones to reach, and reasons for her to continue her journey if she takes a rest or a detour. Basically what I'm saying here is to research your target audience. The better you know them, the better the chances you have of tailoring their user experience to help them get to where they want, and you need them to be.

Managing Different Personality Types

Even when you have defined your target audience, within that you get different personality types, so you need to cater for these too. In our example Dorothy is just one person, but she will have different moods on different days. In real life, you will need to deal with the following personality types

• Status/power

• Cutting edge/Fashion

• Social awareness

• Price driven

The first 2 personality types are likely to make quick decisions and go to the final destination quickly, providing you present the type of information they need succinctly and clearly.

However, thesocially aware person will probably need to delve down much deeper before making a decision, perhaps interact with you to test out your credibility, or verify your statements through external sources. These personality types are a good example of the stepping stones approach; perhaps researching information first, engaging with you on your Blog etc. Again, manage this element of the user experience well and you have a great chance of them reaching the end destination.

Finally, we have the price driven person. These will need to see pricing info, perhaps comparisons with other products, reviews etc, and are a great example of reaching the end destination in stages. Newsletters with details of promotions etc are a great way of getting this personality type back on your road if they exit off for a while.

Ensuring that the Journey is all about the Traveller

Although the whole point your website is about achieving the goals you've set for it, it's important to realise that the journey is really about the travellers and the goals THEY want to achieve. Ideally, if you've identified your target audience well, these should be the same for you and them, but make sure that the journey is structured around them.

In this regard, make sure the navigation suits the needs of your chosen travellers/target audience and not yours. If you have multiple brands or divisions, don't simply replicate your company structure on your site, unless this is logical to the visitor. Instead, try and organise things so that they can easily find what they want.

Also, the user experience is enhanced if it's obvious that they are the centre of your attention. This is not helped if you talk about yourself all the time, so do all that you can to avoid words like "Us, we, our, I, me" and instead use "you and your" as often as you can. Think about every statement you make about yourself, and where you do use a term about yourself, ensure that you include them in the same sentence. For example - "We are experts in ....." becomes, "We are experts in .... ensuring you get the results you want!"

Getting them to Travel your Road again.

As mentioned, sometimes people won't get to the destination in one go, but whether they take several attempts to get there, or just one, once they have, that shouldn't be the end of the matter. Ideally, you want them to travel it all over again, and do more business with you as a result. A repeat trip after a good experience will be much easier for them as they will now be familiar with the route and will have built up some trust in you.

The better the user experience, the better chances you have of getting them to do this. But, do you want them to travel exactly the same route each time? Perhaps the end destination might be slightly different - for example if you've got other products or services that would appeal to them.

Probably one of the most effective ways to get people back to your site is to give them a good reason to, and that comes down to varying the content. You know their needs, what excites them, so put new and exciting content in front of them again and let them make another trip with you.

Summary

Hopefully this analogy using the road trip example helps clarify the reason why its important to think beyond just getting traffic to your site, and that it's what you do with people once they're there that is the critical issue.

Related Articles
  Map-Quest. How to Find Your Way to Success - Insurance Sales Training
  Destination - The Journey
  Generating Leads Through Your Website
  "The Magical Mystery Tour"
  Keys To Reinvent Your LIfe
  Italy vs Holland
  Learning to Zigzag
  Tables or Table-Less Design in Website Development
  SEO - 75% Of Web Users ONLY Look At the First Page Of Their Search Results - Are You There?
  People with Goals and Dreams
  Enjoying the Journey to Financial Freedom
  Setting the Bar Higher
  Success Is A Journey - Enjoy The Ride!
  Website Optimization � Requirement of Every Website
  How to Convert More Website Traffic into More Customers & Sales by Inviting Prospects to Take Action
  Website Is Necessary For A Successful Business
  Website Is Necessary For A Successful Business
  Home Business Journey
  How Search Engines Work
  The Ultimate Journey

Article Tags: target audience, target market, UE, user experience, website results, wizard of oz, yellow brick road



Related Forum Posts
Re: what position to request? - Hi Michael, Great suggestion from David, or you could try something around a design consultancy, How about Website Design Consultant, Design and Development Manager, Website Support and Development Manager or maybe Internet Business Development Consultant. Ultimately whatever you are comfortable with and good luck for the future, Mal.
Re: How can I promote my site? - There are various useful techniques for promoting a website. In SEO the techniques could be "white hat" and "black hat" techniques. White hat techniques includes following techniques to promote website as per the search engine rules. - Search Engine Friendly Tags - Website submission to Search Engines - Website Submission to Social Sites (Like twitter, Facebook) - Articles Promotion & Press Release Promotion - Quality Directories promotion - Contribution to Blogs, Forums Black hat techniques can reduce website strength in the search engine and can treat site as spam that could be following. - Keywords Stuffing. - Hidden Links - Maximum Links of unknown sites.
Re: Top 5 Magazines For SEO - Hi, Thanks for the links GT, I already subscribe to Website Magazine but must admit that is the only one. Maybe I shoud cast my net a bit wider to see what the others have to offer, regards, Mal.
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: One thing I did to grow my business today - Website: Posted a new article on my main business website and bookmarked it. Team: Contacted new affiliates and invited them to join my training list.
Re: Wordpress Hosting Paid 4 in Beer... - That's awesome, David! I just did a barter this week too... Website for a local auto repair shop in exchange for my business partner and I to both get our cars fixed for free (we both had issues that needed taken care of).


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Business Coach Explains To You How To Add Value

SEO Gurus, Software and Ebooks

Promoting your company and self with verve

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.