“The website isn’t working. Let’s redesign it.”
I hear some version of this regularly.
The website looks dated. Customers cannot find the right products. Enquiries are poor. People are abandoning their carts. The sales team keeps answering questions that should be covered online.
So the business starts looking for a new design, better copy, faster pages or a different platform.
Those may all be sensible changes. But they are often not the first change the website needs.
The harder question is usually this – Who is this website really for?
A redesign cannot fix an unclear audience
A website is not useful because it looks modern. It is useful because the right person can quickly understand where they are, what they can do and what to do next.
That sounds obvious. It is also where many projects go wrong.
A business starts with a broad instruction such as:
- We need a better website
- We need to show our full product range
- We need to support our customers online
- We need to generate more leads
- We need to serve our trade and retail customers
None of these statements is wrong. None is specific enough to guide the work.
If nobody decides who the website is for, every later decision becomes a compromise. The homepage tries to speak to everyone. The navigation grows to accommodate every department. The copy describes the business instead of helping the person who has arrived.
A new visual style can make this problem look different for a while. It does not remove the problem.
“Our customers” is usually several different groups
When I ask a business who its website is for, the answer is often: “Our customers.”
That answer is understandable. It is also too broad to be useful.
Your customers may include a trade buyer who orders every week, a wholesale account manager comparing supply options, a private customer buying for the first time, a builder looking for technical information, and a specifier trying to confirm whether a product is suitable for a project.
They may all buy from the same business. They do not arrive with the same questions.
They do not use the website in the same way. They do not need the same level of explanation. They do not judge a good experience by the same standard.
A trade buyer may want to:
- Find a known product quickly
- See account pricing
- Check stock and delivery details
- Repeat a previous order
- Download an invoice or product document
A private customer may want to:
- Understand which product is right for them
- Compare options
- See examples of how the product is used
- Get help with an unfamiliar decision
- Feel confident before spending money
A specifier may care most about:
- Technical details
- Compliance information
- Dimensions and materials
- Installation requirements
- Files they can use in a project
These are not small variations of the same journey. They are different jobs.
When a website treats them as one audience, it usually becomes vague. The trade buyer has to search through guidance meant for a first-time customer. The private customer is presented with account language and product codes without enough context. The specifier cannot find the technical documents because they sit under a menu written for someone else.
The business may feel that it has included something for everyone.
The visitor experiences a website that is not quite right for anyone.
The trade buyer and the private buyer
Consider a business selling through one website to both trade and private customers.
The trade buyer already knows the product. They may be placing an order between other jobs. Their priority is speed. They want to sign in, see their pricing, check availability and reorder without having to read a long product story.
The private buyer may be doing the opposite. They may be comparing several products for the first time. They may not know the difference between the options. They need photographs, plain explanations, dimensions, examples and reassurance that they are making the right choice.
If both people see the same homepage, the same navigation and the same product page, the website is asking one of them to work too hard.
The trade buyer sees too much information and too many steps.
The private buyer sees too little help and too much assumed knowledge.
This is not necessarily a copywriting problem. It is not necessarily a checkout problem. It is a decision problem that appeared before either of those things.
A related example is Partmax, a B2B automotive marketplace. The platform had to account for automotive service providers and independent parts suppliers. Both groups were essential, but they came with different goals and different ways of using the marketplace.
That distinction had to be understood before the screens could be designed. Otherwise, the product would have been shaped around internal assumptions rather than the work each group needed to complete.
The uncomfortable business decision
The difficult part is accepting that you may not be able to serve every audience equally.
This is where many businesses stop.
Every audience matters to someone internally. The sales team wants trade customers prioritised. The marketing team wants the private customer journey to look better. Operations wants fewer service calls. The product team wants technical content made easier to find.
All of those requests can be reasonable.
But a website still needs a clear order of importance.
The primary audience should not be chosen because it is the loudest voice in the room. It should be chosen through business judgement.
You might consider:
- Which audience is most important to future growth
- Which audience is most profitable or strategically valuable
- Where the website can make the greatest difference
- Which audience currently creates the most avoidable work
- Which customer relationship the business wants to strengthen
- Whether the website is meant to sell, support, educate or help people start a conversation
The answer may be different for the homepage, a product page and an account portal. That is fine.
The important thing is to make the decision deliberately.
A homepage can direct different audiences into different paths. A product page can make the main buying journey clear while still offering technical information. A trade portal can prioritise speed without forcing private customers through the same experience.
What does not work is giving every audience the same weight on every page simply to avoid making a choice.
What clarity looks like before you build
Before I think about layout, colours or features, I want to understand the journey each important audience is trying to complete.
For each group, I would ask:
- What brings them to the website?
Are they responding to a project, a reorder, a problem, a referral or a search? - What do they already know?
A regular trade buyer may know the product range well. A private customer may not know which category to start with. - What are they trying to do?
Find a product, compare options, request a quote, place an order, download information or get help? - What makes them hesitate?
Price, availability, technical suitability, delivery, installation or confidence in the business? - What information helps them move forward?
Account pricing is useful to one audience. Product education may be more important to another. - What is the next useful action?
It may be a purchase, an enquiry, a saved product, a document download or a call with the right person.
This work does not need to become a large research exercise. It does need to be specific enough to expose the differences.
I also want each important page to have a primary audience and a primary job.
That gives the team a practical way to decide what belongs on the page and what does not. It helps prevent every internal stakeholder from adding one more message, button or feature.
In work on Joval Wines’ Winesource trade portal, the customer journey and ordering process were examined before the platform was redesigned. That meant the work could focus on how trade customers actually browse, manage stock and place repeat orders, rather than simply giving the existing portal a new appearance.
The journey came first. The interface followed.
A simple test for your current website
Open your website and look at the homepage as if you are a customer.
Can you answer these questions without asking anyone internally?
- Who is this for?
- What can I do here?
- Which path is meant for me?
- What should I do next?
- Is the information written for what I am trying to do today?
If the answer changes depending on which customer you are, that may not be a problem. A business can serve several audiences well.
But each audience needs a clear path, and the business needs to decide which path matters most.
That is not a design task. It is a business decision.
Before you commission a new website, decide who it is for. Then decide what that person needs to accomplish.
The design, copy and features will make much more sense after that.
