Recently I have spoken several people who have been considering re-designing their websites because they have not been effective at lead generation. Our conversation centered on how there has been a fundamental change in website design over the last eighteen months. While sites had previously been designed from the standpoint of a brochure-like orientation–product pages and the ubiquitous ‘About Us’ page, design has transformed to a ‘buying-persona’ or ‘visitor-centric’ type of site orientation. The reason for this? Simple, you only have seconds to get your visitors off your homepage and deeper into your site, or your dreaded ‘Bounce’ rate will skyrocket (where people land on your site and go no deeper than the page they land on).
Why is this? To explain, let’s take the scene from the movie ‘Three Kings’ where George Clooney’s character asks “What is the most important thing in life?” His cohorts stammer for an answer, when the answer is merely one word: Necessity. The idea is that people will do what is most necessary to them, at any given moment. Use this as the central theme when designing your website: Who are going to be your visitors, and what is the most important thing to them at the moment they arrive on your site (hint, it’s not who YOU are, it’s what does your product or service do for them, right now). Therefore, segment you visitors into ‘buying personas’ on your homepage and on each landing page for that buying persona you speak directly to their needs! This is a fundamental paradigm shift from how most websites are currently designed.
SSI Before
Here is a great example of a site we are currently putting the final polish to: SSI of Oklahoma City had a site that was not driving any leads to their marketing department. Their site was used by their existing clientele, but that was about it. When we reviewed their site, it was apparent that their prospective customer base could be easily segmented, but it was also necessary to make that very apparent on the new site….have a look.
The circled area on their current homepage (above) is who SSI wanted to speak directly to, but their segmentation of their buying personas could easily be overlooked, or outright missed by their site visitors.
SSI After
In the proof above the buying personas are segmented and can easily be identified. The three images you see are actually live buttons that when clicked by the appropriate persona, will take them to the landing page that speaks directly to their needs.
Problem solved.
I hope this helps anyone mired in creating the proper layout for their website, and aiding their ability to turn their site visitors into prospects, and ultimately customers.
Preston Ehrler
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