OK, so on to working backwards.

In web design, you main aim is that we want the sales made from all the sites we build to be as effortless as possible, and we will work hard for that target.

One of the things we do to acheive this is SEO: Sales Effort Optimization.

A lot of web design companies focus on Search Enging Optimization. That is, trying to setup your site so that it appears on the first page or the first listing on major search engines.

Now, while appearing on the first page of search engine results is a good step, if your website sales process is confusing, then what’s the point?

So what’s the answer?

Sales Effort Optimization. Some people call this precondition planning. A lot of big companies use this method of goal setting and task planning.

Now, we understand that this post might be long, so we are going to indent and highlight key points in bold, but we highly recommend reading the entire page.

The first step to Sales Effort Optimization is:

 

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1. Define the final desired result.

 

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Before anything is done, before the design, before the programming, decide what you want your website (or web application/program/project/meeting etc.) to accomplish.

 

As Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat says “If you dont know where you are going, any road will do!”

Write down the goals / desired actions for your website. You might have a few of these, or you might have just one - ‘Make Me Money!’ but try to be a little more specific. For instance, this site has two main goals.

1. Provide enough free and valuable information for prospective clients to get them to where they want to fill out our More Information form for us to contact them about a possible website project.
2. Provide an online portal for registering domains and hosting websites.

Now that these goals are set, we introduce:

 

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2. Precondition Planning.

 

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This is where you work backwords to the simplest task possible listing as the next item what is stopping the current item from being completed.

 

For example, for our first goal, we would list our precondition plan as such (starting with the end goal):

1. We need to receive the visitors details because we dont want them paying to call us.
2. In order to do that, our website needs to email us those details.
3. In order to do that, our website needs to collect those details.
4. In order to do that, the website visitor needs to be able to enter their details.
5. In order to do that, the website visitor should follow a call to action to fill in the form.
6. In order to do that, the website visitor should first have read some useful information.
7. In order to do that, the website visitor needs to be able to find the useful information.
8. In order to do that, our website needs to be ranking highly on search engines.
9. In order to do that, our website needs to be validly/properly programmed/designed.
10. In order to do that, we need to have internal best practice documents.
11. In order to do that, we need to hire knowledgeable programmers.
12. In order to do that, we need to promote our company as a fun workplace.
13. In order to do that, we need to have an all you can eat ice cream policy.

OK, so maybe we have gone a bit far here, but you get the idea, right?

Now, sometimes you will have two preconditions for the current step. But that’s not something to worry about. Just branch off into multiple lines and keep going down each line. (You might find that they will join up again further down the track)

Once you have done this for all of your goals, we start step 3:

 

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3. Task Assignment.

 

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This is where the fun begins.

 

Now we take our Precondition plan, reverse the list and assign out the tasks required to reach the goal.

Task (What?)	Who?	When?	Done?
Establish Ice Cream Policy	CEO	Day 1
Hire competent programmers	HR	Day 3
Establish best practice guidelines	Programmers	Day 5
Build valid website	Programmers/Designers	Day 8
Write useful content	Copywriter	Day 9
Program contact form	Programmer	Day 10

OK - so we are not going to fill this one out completely, but you can see how it works.

One more import step in Sales Effort Optimization is:

 

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4. Process checker.

 

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Assign one person to follow the precondition plan through at each step.

 

This persons role is to make sure that each step leads on to the next as you have outlined in your plan. If this person isnt quite sure what happens next, or they are hesitant about whether the step is fully covered, then they need to bring the team together for further clarification on that step before the team can move forward.

So you see, when you follow the rules of SEO then everything is focused towards improving the sales process - because it is this that is more important than your search engine rank.