The World of the Midnight Surfer

Hopefully you've not made the mistake of building your website so that only you like it ... it is your visitors and potential customers that need to be attracted by your website. To make a website appropriate for them you should try to think like them.

One possible category of web visitor that we try to consider when doing consultancy for customers is the one who generally works during office hours and wants to get as much done as possible at home late at night once the kids have gone to bed.

Introducing the "Midnight Surfer".

If you are seriously trying to attract this person to your site and for them to engage with you then having statements like "Call us to order" are going to be of zero value. This is especially true when perfectly good immediate and online substitutes exist for the action.

How happy would you be to view items on a website, add the ones you want to your basket and then to be told to telephone with your credit card details and read out the codes of the items you have purchased? I think you'd go elsewhere, yes?

So when you are reviewing what web visitors can do on your site keep in mind our friend the Midnight Surfer. Make it possible and they'll engage with you.