By Jerry Bader

Everyone Has an Agenda

When we watch our favorite television programs like 'CSI' or 'House', we knowingly and even gladly allow ourselves to be manipulated. When we watch the evening news, we are manipulated by the selection and presentation of stories that have been filtered through a series of network agendas. These range from the benign time constraints of a thirty-minute broadcast to the more suspicious dictates of network and sponsor interests.

Websites are vehicles for communicating content to an audience. Like your favorite television show, or evening news; that communication is not neutral; it comes with an agenda and that agenda should be yours.

If your website designer is not developing your site within a framework created to communicate your marketing information, then you are not getting the website you need. If your website designer is merely a technical programmer and not a communicator, then you have picked the wrong supplier.

Whether you are selling an idea, a product, or a service does not matter; it matters that you are trying to convince your audience your offer will benefit them in some way. You are manipulating your presentation to your advantage. That does not mean you should be dishonest or deceitful, but rather just skilled in getting your message across.

To manipulate, as defined, in part by wordreference.com, means to 'control or influence skillfully, usually to one's advantage'. That is the job of a professional website designer: to influence an audience skillfully to the website owner's advantage.

Defining an Appropriate Website Agenda

Build your website to be an affective marketing communication vehicle that accomplishes these tasks:

1. Attract interest
2. Focus attention
3. Convey attitude
4. Enhance understanding
5. Generate confidence
6. Stimulate desire
7. Motivate action

Attract Interest

Check your website logs, if you find people are leaving your site as fast as they are arriving, then you have a problem. The time and effort you spent on optimizing your site, for the search engines to attract visitors, is wasted if those visitors do not stay long enough to get your marketing message. Visitors will leave your site within seconds if your splash page is confusing or irrelevant to their needs. The initial contact with your audience must capture their attention and quickly establish that you are the source of the information, products, or services they are looking for.

Focus Attention

Your established site has the information your audience wants, so you must make it easy for people to find it. Organize information, products, and services for quick access and easy navigation between options and alternatives.

Visitors focus on finding what they came for; and locate it. Now they will be more receptive to notice the items you want to direct them to. The moment when visitors are ready to focus on your pitch, Jared Spool, of "User Interface Engineering", calls this the 'seducible moment'.

Enhance Understanding

Design the presentation of your information for human understanding, not the search engine robots. People absorb more information, have better comprehension, and retain more of what you want them to, when information is presented by a real person.

If you want to see the future of the Web, visit Wyeth's menopause related website at http://www.knowmenopause.com. This site provides visitors with these options:
- going to a text-based version that is index-able by search engines and where visitors can print out the material;
- and a multimedia version that features video presentations by doctors discussing the medical issues,
- and interviews with ordinary women discussing their personal experiences.

Generate Confidence

Since the Web is a remote environment, it is important to create confidence in your company, the products, and services you provide. Easily create this confidence by providing visitors with email addresses, phone numbers, physical locations, and contact names. Many websites fail to provide this kind of information. If you do not provide proper contact information, it looks like you have something to hide.

Relating people with people is critical in building confidence. The Wyeth knowmenopause.com site does a brilliant job of providing expert video advice from qualified professionals, as well as, video commentary from average people relating their personal experience with the subject matter. In addition, you do not have to be a multinational pharmaceutical company to do this. Every business has access to expertise and knowledge. If you stop pitching and start informing, you may find you are further ahead.

Convey Attitude

Every business conveys a personality to the clients through their experiences with that company. When you rely on your website as your main point of customer and prospect interaction, then your website has to present an attitude appropriate for your audience. You convey this attitude via the graphics, copy, and multimedia presentation of the information, products, and services you provide. When it comes to 'attitude', the medium is very much the message. The Web is such an impersonal environment. It is important to design your presentation so that it delivers the attitude and personality that will relate to your audience.

Stimulate Desire

The desire to buy a particular product or service is based on more than functional utility; no one really needs a Rolex or a Lexus. People buy most of what they buy based on emotional and psychological desire rather than functional need. Functionality often comes into play merely as a justification for the purchase. Part of your website's job is to create the emotional and psychological desire for the product in question.

Motivate Action

Your website should be designed to motivate people to action, but do not construct your site to limit that action to a sale or to nothing. Many sites obviously design the website to entice you to purchase items with little or no attention to enhancing understanding or generating confidence. This 'all or nothing' approach is severely anti-productive and conveys the impression you cannot be trusted. Customers need to have confidence in you and your offerings; and need some reassurance that you are legitimate.

You want a website visitor to do something; anything that demonstrates some interest. That expression of interest could be a phone call to ask a question, signing up for an e-newsletter, requesting a catalog, responding to a survey, poll, or promotion - anything that displays they have some interest in what you are offering. If you can motivate your audience to action, even if that action is not directly sales related, you are on your way to building a relationship with that prospect.

Communication: Turning Content Into a Memorable Experience

In order to achieve your marketing goals, you need to know how to manipulate, or if you prefer, 'seduce' your audience to your advantage using the seven tools of website persuasion.

Position

Web pages are usually made-up of similar types of information. Standard page elements include:

i. Header information - such as logo, company name, address, and basic contact information
ii. Navigation elements - so visitors can find what they need
iii. Content - such as text, graphics, audio, and video
iv. Sidebar information - that might include additional information or links that relate to the content or advertisements
v. Footer information - that might contain further contact or copyright information

The positioning of these elements is critical to the comprehension and retention of your information and marketing message. Various usability studies carried out in the USA and Great Britain have tracked the eye movement of website visitors. These studies help the designer place the various page layout elements on the screen to produce the maximum effect.

Most studies are consistent with their eye movement tracking results:

i. Middle-Center: Visitors first focus on the center of the page searching for anticipated content;

ii. Top-Left: Eyes then move to the top left corner where a logo or company name is expected;

iii. Down Left-hand side: Eyes then move down the left-hand side of the screen where navigation usually occurs;

iv. Top-Middle to Right: Eyes then move back to the top of the screen and move from the center to the right scanning for further navigation elements or additional company identification information;

v. Middle-Center: Eyes then move back to the middle of the screen scanning for relevant content;

vi. Right-hand side: Eyes then move to the right side of the screen looking for additional information or sidebars;

vii. Middle-Center to bottom: Finally, eyes go back to the center and down the page towards the footer scanning for additional content.

It should be noted that these studies also suggest that website visitors will quickly determine where any advertisements are located and then proceed to ignore or avoid them when moving on to other pages of that website.

Size

The size of the various elements will obviously draw attention to, or away from particular information. Logos, graphics, headers, and body-text should all be balanced and proportionate. The use and amount of white space is as important to readability and comprehension, as any of the other elements relate.

Color

The use of color is another obvious feature that draws attention to particular information; color also conveys personality, mood, and image. Blue, silver, and green are calming colors that convey a cool, if somewhat remote image. Reds tend to convey a sense of excitement and boldness, while yellows are bright and friendly. Browns and beiges are earthy, warm and rich, while black, white, and gray convey a sense of sophistication.

These are all generalizations. You can mix and match colors to provide a variety of moods and personalities. It is important to choose a color palette with care; not only to convey personality, but also to direct and focus attention on particular key elements.

Shape

The shape of elements is another way to draw attention to particular information or content. Traditional computer monitors with their 4:3 ratio and the new more extreme 16:9 ratio monitors create particular challenges when trying to present substantial information above the virtual fold; this means the visible area that does not require scrolling. Sometimes you cannot avoid vertical scrolling. If you have a lot to say, think about adding an audio or video option that only requires the click of a button to present your information with no scrolling required.

Sound

Web-audio is the most cost-effective multimedia-format for delivering large amounts of complex information or instructions to website visitors. Web-audio delivers the information in a meaningful, compelling, entertaining, and memorable way, and helps establish a corporate personality and image.

Movement

Movement helps attract and direct attention to certain aspects of your website. The best way to incorporate some action on your site is with Web-video, which uses a Web-host to present information or direct visitors to where they want to go.


Style

The visual style of your site directs attention and focus. It helps establish your personality and helps the relation to your target audience. Styles range from conservative to funky to downright bizarre; but what really matters is your style choice, it tells visitors who you are and what you are. Your website style will help create the attitude aspect of your website presentation.

Conclusion

Designing a website is more than programming and search engine optimization; it is how you communicate to your future customers. This job is too important to leave to someone who does not understand how to use the Web and its full arsenal of presentation elements to communicate your marketing message.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in delivering their clients' marketing messages using the latest audio, video, and Flash presentation techniques to create compelling and memorable Web-experiences that enhance brand personality and increase sales and profits. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, http://www.136words.com http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.