Corporate Web StrategyWeb Marketing ideas, tactics, trends and more….

When a corporate website is first conceptualized, one of the first things that come to mind is the website structure.

How best can we architecture our web structure so that it’s relevant, up-to-date, functional and easy to navigate, all at the same time?

I also call this as the online customer journey THROUGH your website.

Some small businesses will have no problem creating this. A basic structure would be About Us, Products, Services, Contact Us, etc. However, if you have a more complex business, you’d have products, sub-products, demos, services, offers, more sub categories, and much more.

How do you plan your customer journey so that they see what you WANT them to see, depending on what they are looking for?

First, you’ve got to know who your customers are and what they are looking for. Are they decision makers looking for a solution? Are they looking for reviews of your products? Are they looking at how to use your product to solve their problem?

But then again, each person is looking for something different which you are able to offer. How do you lead them to the right offer?

There are several ways you can consider the structure for your website – 1) By customer need, 2) By product categories, 3) By packaged solution or by 4) By audience type

Customer need

Your top menu is structured according to the problems your product can solve. For example, a IT services company may classify their solutions according to employee collaboration, data management, human resources management, business process management or enterprise resource planning.

Product categories

Using the same example above, product categories could be the various brands of IT software, project management services, hardware and financing services provided by the company in order to meet the customer needs stated above. A consumer retail example would be classifying products according to brands and sub-brands.

Packaged solutions

Suppose the company combines several of their solutions and calls them Cloud Computing Solutions, Information Management Solutions or IT security solutions. These are a bundle of solutions, consisting of several brands, sub-brands and services that are presented to the customer as one holistic package.

Audience type

This would be categorizing your products and solutions according to what you think your customer type. For instance, a CIO would be looking for a different solution as compared to a Purchaser from the same company who is browsing your website. Thus, the presentation approach and the issues addressed for each audience (in which your products and solutions are ready to solve), would be different. The “lingo” used will differ between the audience type you are addressing – technical jargon for IT specialists, developers, etc, and business jargon for CIOs, purchasers, etc

Your landing page

Think about what you want to PROMOTE on your landing page. What is the first impression you want people to make of you? Does your landing page layout, navigation and design resonate with the type of products and solution you are selling?

Navigation

It’s best to make it easy for people to find what they are looking for. Don’t put too many levels or depths in your menu. Make sure they are able to find whatever they are looking for. Don’t cross-categorize your products or place the same products in multiple categories.

Find a structure that best speaks to your audience, and position your products or solutions within the approach that you have chosen.