Home Page Design - Know Your Website's Target Market

By Carma Spence-Pothitt

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If your website is going to be effective, it needs to speak to your target market. In fact, to be truly effective, it needs to speak to your ideal client. Do you know who that is?

One way to define your market is to take a good look at your current clients and identify those characteristics and qualities that are common among those whom you enjoy working with.

Do your best clients:

• come from the same or similar industry or profession?
• have the same or similar type of business?
• share a particular personality trait or outlook on life?
• fall within a narrow age range, geographical location or income level?

Look for trends that you can find within your list of clients and you'll have a very good clue as to what your target market might be.

Once you know who you're talking to, you can design a home page that speaks to him or her. Here are a couple of examples:

• If your ideal client works in a specific industry or profession, use the "special language" of that group. Every industry or profession has it's own common terms that mean something specific to members of that group. Using this language will show that you understand them.
• If your ideal client lives in a specific geographic region, be sure to reference this information in your copy. It will not only help visitors to your website know they are in the right place, but it will also enhance your local search ranking.

Also, the type of person you want to communicate with through your home page will determine what colors can be in your color palette, what images you use to illustrate your points and how you organize your website's information.

Jumping into the creation of your website without knowing your target market, is like grabbing a bow and arrow and shooting without taking aim. If you hit the target, it was pure luck... and you don't want to leave the success of your website to luck, do you?