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Design Your Website for Your Target Audience

Targeted web design

Keeping your target audience in mind when you are planning a website redesign is a critical component of whether or not that website is going to be effective and viewed as a trust worthy source of information in your industry. It is important to review past analytic data from your website to see the different screen resolutions that are used as well as traffic patterns to different topics and the most popular content. It is also a good idea to ask users who fit into your target audience what they like to see in a website and maybe some examples of the way content is presented to them. Keeping your target audience in mind can have a huge effect on whether visitors find your website easy to maneuver through or move on to another website.

Analyze past website visitor data and behavior

Analyzing past data and seeing patterns in user behavior is a great way to dive into how visitors to your website think and act. No matter the website, there are different patterns on how visitors click through the website and different areas they spend more time at. Using this data and analyzing patters can show you how to cater that specific audience for more relevant information. If you see that there is a high rate of traffic that goes to view your contact page and your contact information is solely there, it may be a good idea to place that contact information on every page, so it is directly in front of customers at all times. Another example is if you see patters of users moving from article to article. This can be a sign that you may want to place links to related articles maybe on the side of your website or at the bottom of the article so they can move on to the next article without backing out to an articles page.

Screen resolutions

Another very interesting piece of information you can get from analytics data is the screen resolution that visitors are using to view your website. This can come in handy when redesigning your website so you can keep it in a particular screen resolution. This helps with the amount the user has to horizontally scroll to see all of the content on your website. You may decide that the screen resolution may be large or small and you would like to have a more “fluid” design that stretches to fit the screen of your visitor no matter the screen resolution. Either way, being able to analyze data and see what your visitor is using for hardware can help them have a great user experience on your website.

Ask people in your target audience what they like

What better way to gather information about your new website design than to ask people who are in your target audience? I am always surprised how much detailed information people will give you about what they like about a website and what they find easy and difficult. All of it is good information to gather and sift through for your new website. When we asked people for their input, they are usually very likely to help you out and they like to see some of their ideas incorporated into a design. I have heard different target audiences that like larger text, larger pictures, YouTube videos, blogs, articles, forms, wider designs, contact information are just a few of the features that we have heard people say they like to see on a website. Another great way to have users find your site more useful is to have programs that help them out. For example, if you have a mortgage website, maybe you should place some calculators on your website and some instructions on what they are calculating and how it can affect their mortgage payments. These little programs are a great way for people to bookmark your website and see you as an authority in your field.

Make it easy for your target audience

It is always a pleasure to go though a website that has exactly what you want, relevant information everywhere and fits within your viewing screen. These are the types of websites that we will often bookmark. We have also seen when a website has the features that the target audience is looking for, those website almost always have higher sales because of it. Make it easy for your visitors and hopefully they will make it easier for you to keep your business making money.



Web Design vs. Print Design

Web Design VS. Print Design

Web VS. Print – Similar, but very different

Many people who venture out to create a website aren’t aware of the vast differences between the web world and the print world. The web world is very dynamic when it comes to the varying degrees of how a user can physically view the website. The print world is very exact and it can be controlled precisely so the user sees exactly what the publisher intended.

Computer Monitor
https://www.flickr.com/photos/florisla/ /
CC BY-SA 2.0

The web has always had many varying factors to take into account before the design process even takes place. Now more than ever, people are viewing the same web pages on their cell phones and on their 22” monitors at their dwelling. That proves to be one of the challenges when designing a website. Another challenge is the screen resolution of the monitor. As computer monitors get larger, the screen resolution sizes increase. Depending on how the website is built, two different users with 2 different screen resolutions can have a very different experience. Objects and text can be spaced out and harder to read and follow. Colors can also appear differently depending on the user’s monitor. Some monitors display the colors correctly, but if the user adjusts the brightness or the contrast, colors can appear skewed from what they web designer originally intended. It is very important to first start with the initial goal of the website and then build the website around that particular goal.

The print world is very exact. The user will always see exactly how the author wanted to portray the development piece. True, the user may have to view the billboard through distractions such as buildings, telephone poles, etc, but when they view the display, it will be very precise. From the colors, exact size, cut design, transparency, thickness, it will always be the same.

There are many differences between the web and print world. The web is highly dynamic with the many screen sizes and resolutions that the viewer can use to gather information while print is very exact. Each has its own challenges and focus on the specific targeted demographic.