Audience & goals

The secret of a successful website is knowing which audiences you are trying to reach, and designing site content that addresses both audience goals and organizational goals.

Websites are for users!

It might sound obvious but websites are for users! Websites are about providing information to your users that they want or need. People will not make a regular habit of visiting your website if their needs are not being met.

When designing your site you need to understand that you have different users with different needs. You should not presume that new website users understand your organization or the issue you are working on.

Know your goals!

A great way to start the design process is to identify what the goals of your website are. They might include the following;

• Educate and inform
• Create organisational identity
• Increase your base, mobilise your supporters
• Media outreach and engagement
• Campaigning tool
• Influence decision makers and people in power
• To serve as a trusted news source
• Provide specialised data, research or information which relates to to the field your organisation works in.

Find out more about how to clearly define your communications goals in our Strategy Overview. Look at how your website strategy links with your overall campaign strategy.

Know who your users are

You should then start to think about who are the users of your web site are. They might include the following;

• Supporters/members
• First time visitors
• Press
• Funders (small donors or other larger funders)
• Other organisers and activists
• Opponents, targets of your campaign
• Decision makers

Having an understanding of the following aspects of your audience will help you to create content that speaks directly to them;

• Education
• Age
• Gender

Know Your User’s Goals

Once you have started identifying your site’s users you can then start identifying their goals – what are they trying to find or do? What information or resources can you offer to people visiting your site? Once you have identified the main users for your site you can start to figure out what you want each user to learn or do when they visit your site. Limiting these basic goals will make the experience of visiting the site more enjoyable for your visitor.

In order to help your audiences undertstand the issue you are working on you should design a “frame” that will help each audience understand your issue. A “frame” is the way you tell your story in terms of geography, personal narrative and tactics. Proper framing of an issue will help your campaign or audience

For example if you talk about the issue you are working on in terms of your campaign strategy you may not win over an audience that isn’t already supporting your issue.

Its worth taking some time to conduct an audience definition exercise;

• Who are your audiences
• Name them and rank their importance
• Name three other sites they use regularly

For your highest priority audiences ask the questions;

• What do you want them to learn or do?
• How do they get to your site
• What are they trying to find?
• Where do they click on the front page?
• What do they do next?

For each of these core groups you can create a ‘click path’ – a set of links that you want them to click on and follow. Click paths allow multiple audiences to have their needs met with one page design.

For example your goal with a supporter would be to get them to take action and recruit others and show them how their actions matter; they might click on a ‘Campaign updates’ or ‘Take action’ link. After that your goal would be to get them to recruit others.

Find out more about how to clearly define your audience in our Strategy Overview. Look at how your website strategy links with your overall campaign strategy and consider careful the mix of offline and online materials to reach all the people that matter.

[ Add graphic device or image for audience & goals.]

_{This material is based on the eAdvocacy Training materials produced by Aspiration in partnership with Radical Designs which are used with their kind permission and have been added to and adapted for this guide. These materials are distributed under a Creative Commons license: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5.}