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In order to successfully reach
the goals you've set for

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a website you have to
understand the target audience,

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that means taking the time to learn about
the people that will be using the website.

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The more information you
can uncover the better,

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because it will help you make
more informed design decisions.

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For example, the way you'd most
effectively communicate to a child

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is different than the way you might
communicate to a young adult,

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which is also different from a way
you might talk to a senior citizen.

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Who is your audience, you should try
to gather demographic information like

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location, age ranges,
gender, or income level.

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This will help you make better
guesses about what types of design and

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language they will understand.

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For example,
if you're marketing a product intended for

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young adults you could interview
them about how they use the web.

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You'll probably find that they use social
media frequently, this information

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can influence how you communicate with
them and what you put on your site.

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For example, if they're Facebook
users you could think of

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ways to connect your site to Facebook to
better spread your product's message.

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Or if you're marketing
a service to one audience

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in a market that has traditionally
skewed toward a different audience

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you might need to explain
the service in greater detail.

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Keep in mind this sort of information
is qualitative, not scientific.

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You're interviewing a few people,
not serving everyone who might use your

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product, so it should only be used as
general guidance and not empirical fact.

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If the organization has
already been operational for

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a while you can often gather this type
of data from customer databases, or

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web tools like Google Analytics,
or Jetpack for WordPress.

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Spending time exploring this data might
give you some additional insights you

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hadn't previously considered,
such as how much time they spend on each

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page before they leave or what types
of designs get the best response.

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If that type of data isn't available,
perhaps because it's a new business, you

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could try looking at competitor websites
and judge their effectiveness on your own.

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Once you've gathered data about
the audience you can take things

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further with additional research,
you could post a poll on social media,

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create personas, or
conduct interviews and focus groups.

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This falls more into the realm of
user experience research which is

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a deep topic and
beyond the scope of this course.

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But just know that if you don't
feel like you have enough data

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there are plenty of steps
you can take to gather more.

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For the purposes of our
product landing page,

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let's say that we've assessed
some existing analytics data and

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we've been able to distill it
down to a few basic assumptions.

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From our research we discovered that
most of our site visitors are 25 to

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35 years old, they're homeowners,
and they're social media users.

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So put another way we can make a guess
that these are people that probably

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bought their first home not too long ago,
and since they use a lot of social media

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there's a good chance they're at least
familiar with Internet connected

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home gadgets like lights and thermostats
that you can control from a smartphone.