Checklist to Develop User Personas for Your Website

Images Source: Alex Morley

Everyone knows that it’s important to have a website that is appealing, informative and technically updated. But, an informative and friendly website is not all that it takes to connect with visitors these days.

Your website needs to be able to talk individually to every visitor and cater to their needs. This requires knowing:

• Why do users come to your website?
• What are their needs?
• Do they have a particular problem that has to be addressed?
• What approach do they usually take to tackle their business problems online?

These are just some of the questions that you need to be thinking about while developing your website content. It’s easier to talk to visitors when you know who they are and what they are looking for.

Prospects visit websites in search of solutions for stated or unstated problems but it’s not enough just to have a solution to their problem. You need to make them want to listen to you and buy from you.

Online buyer personas define groups as specific individual types and in doing so, help the website speak directly to these individuals. For example, typifying a user type as ‘Deal seeking Donald’ helps you write your content as if you were talking to him directly, answering his questions as they form in his mind. This makes your brand look like it knows him and cares about his problems.

Also, if you are considering embracing personalized marketing, building buyer personas will be an important step to send out the right information to the right personality type.

Check out this step-by-step procedure that will help you create user personas for your website:

Step 1: Define Industries & Roles

List out the different industries your target audience belongs to: IT, e-commerce, finance etc. The next thing is to identify their role within the organization:

• What is their designation?
• Are they the decision makers?
• Are they executives who actually use the product/service?

Step 2: Define Demographics

Gather demographic details about your target audience. Here are some questions you can ask across industries:

• What is their geographical location?
• Does their region rank high for any keywords relevant to your campaigns?
• What is their education level?

Step 3: Learn their Business Objectives

Know what makes their business tick:

• What are the passions that drive them?
• What business goals are they trying to achieve?
• What are the business problems they need solutions to?

Step 4: Your Value Proposition

Tell users how you can enhance their business:

• What is it that your company can offer users?
• How is your company different from the competitors?

Step 5: Categorize personality types

Divide your target audience by their overall personality types:

• Are they problem solvers?
• Are they early adopters of new technologies?
• Are they conservative?

After defining your personas, here are some aspects that you need to understand:

• What will these users expect from you in terms of products and solutions?
• What should be your top content communication format?
• Depending on their needs, which are the pages they are most likely to view and spend time on?
• How will you structure those pages?
• What keywords are the users typing in to look for your brand or industry?

Imbibe the information you gain from user personas into your website building process.

Can you think of any other important questions you need to answer while building user personas?