The second article in the series "How to Make my Website Suck Less."

“Finally, have you run anymore articles for 'website basics' series? Again, after a quick search I couldn't find anything more than the first piece you guys put out. I was looking forward to the series and hope you can point me in the direction of the other pieces for the series, if there are any others out yet.”

An actual quote from an actual CoolPerson. I’m equal parts chagrinned and elated.

Chagrinned because after promising we’d do a weekly series on making your Web site suck less, we failed to deliver on said promise.

But elated because 1) someone read the post (Web site talk can be soooooo boring) and 2) they were hungry (yes, hungry) for more.

I’ve never had fans before, but have always wanted to say “give the fans what they want!”

There, I said it.

Now, onto the next step. When we last left the blogosphere, we were talking about the need to take a phased approach to reviewing your Web site. Breaking it down into a handful of doable steps in order to understand exactly what direction to take next with your site. Whether you’re putting up a site for the first time or considering a redux on a 9-year-old hypertext monster, the steps are critical to future success.

So, we identified who was both coming to our site and who we wanted to come to our site and looked at those two groups. If those groups match up, fantastic -- check step 1 off the list.

If those groups are disparate in any way, make a decision as to which group you’re going to focus on. I’d suggest looking at the audience you want and/or need so as to make sure you’re talking directly to them.

Say you’re a nonprofit. Say you have donors who come to your site and say you also have clients who come to your site. Maybe it’s old, white men with fat (phat) wallets and young, immigrant teens seeking assistance. In the same way you can’t expect for those two user groups to immediately hit it off if sat across from each other at the holiday luncheon, you can’t expect to be able to tell them both what they need to know using the same words, the same images, the same videos, etc.

So, what to do? Do we suggest making more than one Web site for more than one constituency?

Well, maybe.

If your Web site is or can be a major tool in raising funds for your organization, then it’d be heresy to not focus its message and use on that of the dead-president-toting donor (see how clunky it is trying to mesh different users’ languages?!?). And if that’s the case, it needs to look a certain way, talk a certain way, and direct the generous fingertips of your potential givers to a concrete and easy way to share the wealth.

This means however, that the young client your organization serves will visit the site and be either a) confused b) angered c) distressed or d) all of the above. This user, who is just as valuable to the success of your organization as the aforementioned donor, needs to feel welcomed online in the same way, and here’s where the second Web site possibility comes in.

Once you’ve determined your primary and secondary audience, you need to attach to each user type the most important information for that user type. So, for donors and potential donors, the most important information would be how to donate.

For a young client you serve, the most important information may be contact information, a feeling of community, photos from their latest retreat, etc. And so, once you’ve determined the audience, the next step is to determine the top three bits of information each audience needs.

It's time to make a bucket list -- a tad different than Hollywood's version -- this is a list of what content and/or information is needed for your audience(s).

Under the headings of “Primary” and “Secondary” describe all the content, information, etc. each audience needs, and then prioritize the top three. Those top three items for each audience become the integral anchors to your site/online presence. More than three is too hard to digest, let alone act upon. So, feel confident in offering three “buckets” for your users to draw from.

This concludes step two. Next time we’ll explore what to do with the content and whether or not this means multiple online sites or just a easily segmented one. Spend some time fleshing out this list of important content, and be sure that the work you do now will reap rewards in the very near future.

Until then...

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