There are three magic customers that you need to satisfy if you are building a successful website. Think of them as three different “people” who you need to please, (and one of them isn’t human). The first is often the one that many web designers focus all of their efforts on. That is the customer; the person or company paying the fee. This person’s interests come before all else and that is not always the best strategy. Often a site owner and a web designer have difficulty communicating because they seem to speak a different language. One speaks in the language of SEO and the other in the mysterious concept called, “results”! If web designers spent more time discussing results with their customers, they would realize they must make their customers understand that what they want on their site and what works effectively can be two different things.
Site owners must be pleased with the appearance of the site, but if that is the only goal of the web designer, they are doing a disservice to the site owner. The site owner doesn’t know what they don’t know and they need the web designer to explain what needs to be on a site to
get found online.
Small Business Trends wrote a good piece recently about what needs to be on a website. It is good reading and should be shared with customers who are getting ready to put out good money on a website.
The next customer the web designer needs to please is the site user. This goes hand in hand with the above mentioned article. The person who you spend all the time, energy, and money on to get them to visit your site…the user, needs to like what they find when they get there. Even if it is one of those free websites, it needs to be visually appealing, look professional, and be easy to understand. Users need to be able to get around without complications, get their questions answered, and most importantly be told what to do once they are there. You invited them to visit, now what do you want them to do? “Follow you on social media” “Buy Now?” “Sign Up” for something? “Call You Today”? This “call to action” is missing on many websites and it is a mistake that costs money.
And the third magic customer doesn’t even breathe air, but without taking into consideration the wants and needs of this one, your site is not going anywhere…fast. This customer is the search engine. Google, Yahoo, Bing. The search engine must be pleased. The site owner needs to be educated on why content needs to be placed in certain areas and what indexing is all about. It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out ordeal, but the conversation needs to take place. Otherwise millions of websites will continue to be competing for the very same keyword, “Welcome”!
