If you've already got a website and you don't know how effective it is, or perhaps you've finally decided to use a website to grow your business, you'll need to answer a few questions before you can have any chance of success online. An effective online presence requires forethought and planning. The questions that follow will help your website be successful.



-What is the goal of your website? Is it to generate sales, educate consumers, gather leads, or something entirely different? Your website design is completely dependent on your online marketing goals.

- Does your website have a specific demographic or group of people in mind? As you make your website, all of your content, pictures, even the specific words you choose will need to be targeted towards your audience. A website for doctors will be different from a website for patients.

- What is the most effective path for your website visitors to follow? Depending on your website goal, you will want most of your customers to enter your home page and then proceed to a specific destination. Map this out before hand to capitalize off of each visitor. Make sure you make your website's links simple and easy to use. Fancy animated links are difficult for the search engines to read.

- Does each page of your website have a call to action? People often need to be told what to do when surfing the net. Otherwise, they will simply wander. Captivate, educate, and motivate.

- What will you use to determine the success of your website? Are you looking for sign-ups to your newsletter? Are you basing success on sales figures? Perhaps you want people to visit a brick and mortar store. Whatever it is, you will need to be able to measure whether or not your website is working for your business. That way you can make educated changes to your website based on real figures and statistics rather than just assumptions.

Even if you are hiring a professional website designer to make your website for you, you will still need clear answers to each of these questions in order to have the most effective website possible. The more clear you are in your pre-website planning, the more likely it is your website will help you be successful.