Are you planning to design or redesign your website? Then keep this in mind!

The determining factor for the success of your website is in the planning phase. Your plan is linked to all those involved, specifically interested groups and the target audience. The requirements that are paramount for these two groups will be the necessary characteristics that the website must have. This will also be the basis for determining your budget, the calendar of activities and other important considerations. If you are planning to design or redesign your website, then keep this in mind.

The best way to start planning is to identify the needs of the stakeholders

The results that you expect from your website may not be completely clear from the beginning. Some examples you can consider are attracting new potential customers, increasing sales, reducing overhead costs as part of the support or creating a culture of loyalty with your customers. Your website is successful if it meets the vast majority of the objectives set a reasonable level. Defining general objectives and establishing specific objectives is the most important step in planning the perfect website. These result from the interested parties in the project. Stakeholders want the website to perform a function that helps achieve a specific goal.

Once the interested parties have been identified, the next step is to work on defining the specific objectives.

Definition of objectives

The specific objectives must be defined, bearing in mind that they must be feasible and measurable. Once defined, it is necessary to establish priorities. If you are dealing with many interested parties, you must find an agreement in relation to the most important objectives. Now that the objectives have been planned, it is time to consider another critical aspect of any website: the target audience.

Attract the target audience

If at some point in the process the decisions are made based on what the company thinks without having a prior study of the target audience, it will fall into an error, since it will be faced with an inefficient site. The stakeholders of the company are those who decide what happens on the site, but who will be using it are the users and they are the ones who decide whether to stay or return.
The target audience is who really gives success to your website. If priority is given to the objectives of the company over that of the public, they will leave. If the design is based on the tastes of the company instead of theirs, they will leave.

Enter the mind of the audience

Understanding your audience will take time but the results will be incredible and you will be surprised at what you discover with the right questions. When people visit websites, they exchange exclusive time for the desired results (that is, the objectives). If at any time these objectives can’t be obtained or the required effort is greater than its perceived value, the process is abandoned. Therefore, identifying and prioritizing the objectives of the target audience is essential. Understanding your audience will take time but the results will be amazing and you will be surprised! Once you have identified the objectives of the audience, you can focus more on the rest of the user's browsing. This would fit both the objectives of the public and those of the organization.

Define the scope

With the definition of its scope the real and specific needs of its website are exposed. It covers everything from functionality, such as user registration; to content that includes specific pages. A high-level outline of the objectives to be achieved is being established and what elements of support are necessary to achieve it. The scope must determine what are the necessary elements to achieve its defined objectives, both public and business. Each unnecessary element is one more issue to divert your audience from the goal, decreasing the efficiency of your website. Your reach should always be simple.

By considering some important points above you can make sure the planning of your website runs on a proper way.