It is common to think of web projects as technical undertakings and so our focus goes first to technical solutions. Should I use Dreamweaver, Flash or a CMS? Maybe a blog or web service will be better. Back up. You ain’t even ready yet.

First Things First

Why are you creating a web site in the first place? No, it isn’t obvious. Your needs and motivations will color every aspect of the project and affect how your site functions for a long time. Doesn’t it make sense to get clear first? I mean really clear from your motives forward.

Back to the beginning: why do you want a web site? Be honest. If it is just “because”, that’s fine. Just understand that an unfocused site will give you unfocused results. A “because” site will let you say you have a site and not a lot more.

Slightly more specific is, “I need one because I’m in business.” Your site will not be a lot more focused but you will have paid one of the entry fees for being considered legitimate in business. You might offer information about your company. You might throw a few photos up, or post a mission statement. Anyway, you have a business site and you are for real. For good or ill, having a web site has become much like having a business card. It won’t actively help you but not having it will make you look amateur.

Moving up the ladder of specificity we come to the brochure site. Here the why is to display your wares or services. With more specificity you’ve also increased your potential for getting value from your web site costs. You may save some printing costs by not doing color brochures. You might get customers to give you a second look after a personal contact or presentation. And you will have joined the average small business on the web. You won’t get much traffic but that wasn’t your goal, was it?

Still more specific would be an online store. Here you not only describe your goods but offer them for sale. Making money is a popular why, with good reason. Your web site is turning from an expense into an investment. And, if you do it well, you can actually make a profit. Though that is getting harder and harder to do.

That is about as far as the average small business owner or independent consultant takes the question of why. Notice that the why of all these scenarios is focused towards yourself? The answer to why is personal gain or at least satisfaction.

At this point I’d like to offer an observation: if this is as far as your why goes, you are not likely to have many site visitors. That may be alright. If you are clear why you want a site and that why doesn’t entail generating traffic, you’re set.

If your why is self focused, my why for visiting your website probably isn’t going to be very compelling. What are you offering me? Why should I even care?

Beyond Your Needs

Now, if your why is to fill a need that I might have, I’m much more interested. Do you offer a service? Information? Entertainment? Support? Community? Does your site give me enough information to know why I would want your product or service over all the others I might buy? And don’t think this just applies to for profit ventures. Non-profits compete for my time and attention, too.

Does your site copy recognize my needs and wants? Or does it just tell my why you like your stuff?

Why are you reading this? I’m pretty certain it isn’t because you care that I’m a compulsive writer and go nuts if I don’t give in to that compulsion. That’s one of my personal whys for this site. I’m guessing that you are getting your need for web specific information met or at least you thought you might when you started to read.

So consider your whys and the results that those whys will bring. If you don’t need a return on your time and money then don’t worry about thinking beyond yourself. If your why includes more, then consider the whys of your audience, too. Give me a compelling why to visit your site and I’ll be back.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 12:08 am and is filed under Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.