It’s not a big stretch to go

From…

This house is really you. A model home is designed to target a specific buyer. Someone who will say, “I can imagine living here.”

To…

This website is really me. They understand my needs and they have everything laid out in an easy to navigate format to guide me in my buying decision.

Reading today’s Denver Post article about how model home decorators pursue their craft, creating an environment that says, “…What an interesting, tasteful family lives here; boy, I wished I lived here too…”, reminded me of persona driven website design (or redesign) as advocated by the Eisenberg boys, among others, of Call to Action fame.

Their premise is to “Speak to the dog, about what matters to the dog in the language of the dog.” In plainer, non-dog, language, they promote the idea of developing your website not to some designer’s aesthetic but to the personalities, tastes, motivations and demographics of your most desired visitors (what the Eisenbergs et al, label personas).

Chances are you don’t have a one-size-fits-all customer. They have a particular type of job in a particular type of industry or corporate department. Or maybe they tend to be women or men, younger or older, who earn within a specific range or engage in similar types of activities. So the idea behind persona driven design – whether in hot selling model homes or high-converting websites – is to speak to the needs, desires, motivations, aspirations and/or ego needs of those you would have visit your website.

The more closely you can match your sites persona to that of your desired audience, the better your website will convert browsers to customers and the higher a return on your website investment you will realize.