Designing Websites to Fit the Client's Needs

As a website designer, I always make it a point to fully understand my client's business, products and marketplace before designing a site. This gives me ideas how to approach the design based on the audience that the website is geared for. Too many website design companies have taken to the art of showing off their technical expertise and forget about the focus of the site, their client's needs.

Recently, we were contacted by Bill Freitag, the owner of 3B Outdoors Archery a manufacturer of products for the bow-hunting industry to look over his existing website and find out why the existing website was not producing results for his company.

I have not been active as a hunter for over 20 years, so I was very curious as to the advances in the equipment used by bowhunters.

Bill explained that they are a family owned company and showed me the innovative products that his company produces. One of these products is the release light plus. This is a very small LED light that attaches to the bow string release. Many deer hunters are in very low-light situations and this small light allows the hunter to attach the release to the bowstring with a minimum of movement or fumbling around in the dark.

Another product Bill showed me is the air line. This is a small device that monitors the wind direction and speed, which has a big impact on the flight of an archer's arrow.

Bill showed me other products his company manufacturers and I was impressed with the thought that was designed into each of these items.

This lead to a complete re-design of the web site to reflect the fact that they are a family owned company and they actually use these products with a very high degree of success. Each product is now explained fully why it is needed and how it can help the bowhunter be more successful. Gone are the spinning bells and whistles and the fluff that can distract a web site visitor. The problem with the old design was the focus of the website was lost in the old designer's effort to show off the design company's capabilities. The products they make were too difficult to locate within the old website design as it was hard to navigate through the site.

If you are a web designer, never forget the purpose of the site is to sell or advertise to your client's audience, not to showcase your latest design software.

If you are a bowhunter, I highly recommend you visit 3B Outdoors Archery and view their products, you will be impressed as I am with their products.