Do you know who your website’s target audience is and did you keep them in mind when your website was developed?

The main function of most websites is to generate new leads and business. Further goals can include providing useful content (perhaps through a blog) and becoming a thought-leader in the industry. Before determining your goals it is important to identify and research your target audience. Once you know who you’re speaking to, you can develop goals for your website.

About.com defines a target audience as “a specified audience or demographic group for which an advertising message is designed.” This holds true for websites too as they are, in essence, a business’ advertising “brochure” on the Internet. As such a business’ website needs to be enticing and easy to navigate to ensure visitors have a favourable experience and convert in leads or new business.

It is important for your web development agency to have a thorough understanding of your brand’s target audience in order to cater for their needs. Hence, your target audience has to be defined and researched long before the website is developed. Now the question: How do you define your target audience?

Firstly, think about the aim of your website. As an example, a travel operator might want to increase their sales by convincing visitors to book tours online or increase their leads through the number of visitors who download a brochure or fill out a contact form.

Secondly, what group of people would make use of your website? Determine how big your audience is and what their interests are. Based on this create different personas within the target audience. The target audience and personas can be determined based on demographic information like:

- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Location
- Job
- Interests

For instance, a persona for a tour operator could be the middle-aged breadwinner of a family interested in family holidays. The second persona could be an individual that is a regular traveller interested in a packaged group tour. Try to come up with as many personas as possible to ensure you take in consideration all visitors to the website. Based on these personas determine what they would want and how they would interact with the website. This information will help the web developer to determine:

- The overall look and feel of the website
- How the navigation should be laid out to ensure smooth usability
- The number of pages that need to be included in the website

Thirdly, think about what other interests each persona might have. What other websites might they frequently visit? How will they find your website? Also consider:

- The speed of their Internet connection
As a rule of thumb use lower resolution pictures on websites to ensure that the website’s loading time is kept to a minimum.
- The type of browser they will use
The website should be compatible with all browsers but make sure that it works perfectly in your target audience’s favourite browsers.

And finally, think about the goals you want your target audience to complete. For the tour operator, goals could include things like downloading a brochure for a packaged group tour, an online booking for an activity or requesting more information about a bespoke travel package.

Now that you have an idea of what each type of persona would like to derive from your website, you can ensure that the information they are looking for is easily accessible.