Go to any webmastering forum, or question and answer site and inevitable you will find questions about website design. “Can you please look at my site and tell me if you like it…”

That’s a good question, and you should have as many people looking at your site, but it really won’t solve any problems with your site. You might get suggestions to fix little things, or maybe even a full reorganization. The problem is the critiques are coming from non-customers.

There is a big difference between getting advice and feedback from customers and from friends and family. The only way to truly understand how well your website works is for you to monitor your website and see how customers use it. Not only see how they are using it, but also fix problems you can see. Google analytics is great at letting you see how people find your site, what pages they click on, and what pages they leave from. Imagine finding a page on your site that causes 80% of the visitors to leave… I would guess you would want to fix that page.

If you are hands off and hire a designer, make sure you ask them how often they will provide traffic reports. Not just how many people visit the site, but drill down to understand your customers. The more you know the better.

Rules of thumb when organizing a website for your business.

I’m not going to talk about design issues. I’m talking about organization and they way you want visitors to navigate through your site and buy your products and services.

1. Set goals for your website. The great thing about Google analytics, is that you can set goals and monitor how many people reach your goal. The goal can be a thank you page after they buy something or sign up for a newsletter. EVERY WEBSITE NEEDS AT LEAST ONE GOAL
2. You will probably spend a lot of time on the home page of the website. The landing page it is often called. You will probably have a blog on your site too. If you have a blog, most of your website traffic will come in from your blog, in essence making it your most important entry point. Make sure you have all the call to actions and sections that show the visitors what you do, what you sell and how you can benefit them.
3. provide your readers a way to join your conversations. Don’t be scared of them bashing your products. If they want to bash, they will probably do it on a social network. You website is your home and you should make it very inviting to your customers.
4. Every page needs to allow the customer to contact you easily. This doesn’t mean you’ll be up all night answering phone calls. There are many ways to provide customer support, help sections, FAQ’s and other ways for your customers to help themselves.
5. Always be testing. Your website will need tweaks along the way. Monitor and tweak, monitor and tweak. Google analytics has a product called Optimizer that allows you to create split tests to see how different sections capture your customers. Always test and let the best pages win.