I know it sounds obvious, but ask yourself, "What do I want people to do when they come to our site?"

This could be really simple. You might only want people to fill out a form or request more information. It may be you want people to make a purchase online. You might just want people to click on your ads. Hell, you might even have multiple goals for your site. No matter what, here's what I want you to do. Open up Excel or Notepad or MSPaint something you feel comfortable working in and list out the desired responses.

Give yourself some room and start brainstorming. What goes into that end response or encourages multiple visits? Do you offer downloads and whitepapers that encourage people to learn more? How 'bout an email newsletter. Do you have one of those? What about some sort of tool like an interactive-calculator-gizmo-widget-thingy? While these are not your site's main purpose, these are all important tools that you can use to leverage people back into the site and eventually do what you want them to. These are all trackable actions that might correlate in some way to your bottom line. List them, too!

I know this all sounds really basic, but you would be amazed at how many people are not thinking this way! I have had so many conversations with clients where you ask them what they want people to do and they're not 100% sure. If you don't know, how is your visitor going to know?

Labels: Most Wanted Response, Set Up