Know yourself!
A clear understanding of your purpose and your audience is essential for your web site to communicate effectively
Communication Intro
Life experience and a first-class degree course in Communication and Information Studies has brought me strong personal views on communication. They may interest people wanting to explore more deeply and I will link to them from here when I have written them. I may also write some more conventional communication theory articles that can help the general reader to get an overview of a fascinating and relevant subject. A little theory is helpful for understanding online and offline communication and for communicating more effectively.
Practical Matters
Communication is involved in just about everything so even a professor would only scratch the surface of the subject. So let's get practical and consider some basic communication involved in web design and internet success.
Essential Questions
Firstly, what is your website for? What is your purpose, your aims and objectives, your hopes and aspirations? What services or products do you want to promote? Can you be exact? How will you measure whether you are succeeding or not? Have you contingency plans should things go wrong?
Secondly, who is your audience? Are they young, old, wealthy, poor, well-educated, poorly-educated, cool and hip, traditional, fashion-conscious or existing day-to-day, for example?
Your answers are crucial and the feel and function of your website will be built around them. The more clear, accurate and detailed your information, the more closely will the site communicate the messages you want to send and the more fitting it will be for your audience. You may want to send the message that you are open, honest and quality service comes first. Or perhaps you have a product cheaper than the competition and customers can take it or leave it. What you display, especially on the front page, such as the graphics, wording and layout, has to grab your audience in the first couple of seconds. So I hope you can see how your understanding of what your website is for and who it is aimed at can make or break your online success.
Further Questions
How proactive do you want to be? Who will update information, write articles, respond to enquiries? How often do you want to go online? Does HTML scare you? Do you even know what HTML is? (Don't worry, even the computer illiterate can use a well-designed website) Which existing websites do you really like? What is it you like about them? Are there any particular features, colours or graphics you would really like? Have you thought of web hosting? What is your budget?
Has This Helped?
If you can answer the above questions, 01010 has already helped you and it has cost you nothing but some time and thought. Please feel free to contact 01010 at any time for your web requirements or for further information.