After you have decided on the goals of your site, you can begin to determine how you will reach those goals—you can plan the functionality that needs to be part of your site in order to accomplish your objectives.

Functionality Should Be Tied to Goals

This is the part of web design that can really get messed up, whether by accident or by rationalization of mistakes. It’s easy to forget to (sufficiently) implement some important features, or to add features to your site that aren’t really necessary and that don’t contribute to your core objectives.

The functions of your site must satisfy two criteria before they can be considered for implementation: 1) They must be tied to at least one of your goals and 2) they must be measured. Most website functions are very measurable, and a few, like “general appearance” and “ease of use” are more difficult to measure but are critical to your site and must at least be evaluated and monitored.

The Functionality of KindredLearning.com

To illustrate, here are some of the main functions that kindredlearning.com will have:

• Online Store

  The most important function of kindredlearning.com is to provide site visitors with a way to purchase Kindred Learning’s products online. Kindred Learning is located in a remote area, doesn’t have a strong distribution network, and serves a nation-wide audience, so an online store is critical to Kindred Learning’s success. Its current store is functional, but not stellar, at helping users comfortably browse products, add them to the cart, and check out. KPIs for the shopping cart include conversion rates and average order value.

• Newsletter Opt-in Form, Archives, and Syndication Feed

  Kindred Learning’s monthly home school newsletter is a powerful way to communicate with its target market. Offers, news, and articles are distributed to subscribers through the newsletter. Archives and a syndication feed (RSS) would be very powerful for driving traffic and improving search rankings. Opt-ins, opt-outs, open-rates, and the number of subscribers are all measurable indicators of how this function of the site is doing.

• Home School Articles

  Home school articles would be great “spider food” for attracting traffic to the site, and useful articles would provide a helpful service to site visitors. Traffic, conversion rates, and keyword rankings are all measurable indicators of how well home school articles are doing.

• Company News

  Information about new products, product updates, sales, and visits to home school conventions is very important to Kindred Learning’s target market and provides a strong incentive for visitors to return to the site. Company News could also be published using an RSS feed and measured accordingly.

• Information About the Company

  Because most of the traffic to the site comes from search engines, kindredlearning.com needs a very well-done information section to acquaint visitors with the company and its unique selling points. This is one of the functions of a site that is difficult to measure. One way to measure it could be to compare the conversion rates of paired pages—one with and one without corporate information, testimonials, or other credibility elements.

Some functionality that may be added to the site later includes a message board or other community features, a home school cooperative locator tool, product reviews, and a blog run by a member(s) of the Kindred Learning staff.

How the Functionality is Tied to Goals

Each of the above functions is tied to one of Kindred Learning’s goals. The online store is the primary method of driving sales for Kindred Learning. The newsletter and its archives and RSS feed primarily drive sales and nurture relationships with customers. Home school articles attract new leads and serve current customers. The company news section improves communication in one direction, from the company to the customers. Information about Kindred Learning helps reassure prospects that it is a good idea to become a customer.

Conspicuously missing from Kindred Learning’s initial strategy is a method for customers and prospects to communicate their desires to Kindred Learning. The information section will obviously list an e-mail address, but this may not always be the preferred method to elicite customer responses. A message board, product reviews, and/or a blog that allows comments would be great ways to interact with customers and get their feedback. Kindred Learning, however, already knows of many things it can do to improve and has other, non-web-site feedback channels established, so feedback functionality on the web site can wait for a little while.

Hopefully this example will help you to see how the functionality of a web site is determined by its primary goals. Remember, if it doesn’t contribute to your site goals or it is very difficult measure, it may be smarter to leave it off your web site.