Understanding why a customer will come to your website is the first step to building a meaningful website.

In working with many clients over the years, I’ve seen the only initial goal of a website to create a “Wow” factor. This being an attempt to impress their customers and gain a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, this rarely works as planned. And often times leads to frustration from both the client and the designer each trying to seek the elusive “Wow.”

A better approach is to know why your customer is coming to your website in the first place. Example questions you should ask yourself:

• What benefit can a website provide my customers?
• Will customers have questions that could be answered online?
• What are my customers’ needs?
• Are customers looking for a way to contact me?
• Are customers researching products or services before making a decision?
• Will customers go online to compare my company against my competitors?
• Will customers look online for samlpes of work?
• Can my website extend the offline, in store, experience?

Understanding your customers is only one step to a great website. But if done correctly could be a website with the “Wow” factor.