The Right Approach To Internet Planning

Regardless of the company’s product or even service, all internet strategies follow the similar principles of attracting the right people to the right place where they can receive the right message to make the right decision: 

Successful strategies will blend all four of these factors at the Internet Planning stage. The interdependence of each of these elements is also critical, as is the ability to modify and rework each element in the face of market and competitive forces.

Right People – One of the most critical elements of all on-line development is the ‘user perspective’. All too often Web sites are developed with a heavy bias toward how a company thinks they should be seen. As oppose to positioning themselves as the user and asking the question what would I expect to see from this perspective. Further attention should surround the ability to segment and identify the target market. In practical terms a company will need to break down the industry by type, user geography and the levels of knowledge the users may or may not posses.       

Right Place – The Web site must focus on developing and enhancing the following three elements; design, navigation and layout. All three must be consistent, intuitive and concord with the image the company wishes to convey. In real terms the Web site must be able to answer the simple question, who are you and what do you do? The user should also feel that the Web site matches the expectations generated at the search engine stage. 

Right Message – Content relates to headlines, company information, product/service descriptions and news stories. Content can even relate to the Meta tags and page titles of the Web site. Above all content should be relevant, timely, contextual, fresh and inspire trust or a sense of community in addition to being search engine friendly.       

Right Decision – This factor ties back to the Web site objective. What should the user to do when they visit the Web site? Often this aspect is referred to as a ‘call to action’. Think about what the objective of a Web site is and work through the steps that are required in order to fulfill that objective. Always, always apply the KISS principle. If a company would like prospective customers to telephone then it is a no brainer to put the telephone number where it is visible to all (sounds obvious, but you’ll be surprised!)