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Seven Steps to Websites That
Work
by Gary A. Campbell, gacWebSolutions
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Most companies and organizations never build more than
one or two websites. For this reason web development projects have a high potential
for costly mistakes. These costs may take the form of wasted time when the process
drags on well beyond deadline. But even greater is the cost of opportunities lost
due to an ineffective website. The purpose of this article
is to break the web site development process down into five basic steps that will
ensure a website that lives up to its promise. Naturally every design project
is unique so these are only general guidelines. If you'd like to talk to me about
how these principles can be applied to your specific project, you can email me
at gary@gacwebsolutions.net.
1. Develop an Internet Strategy
Whether you're
a for-profit, a non-profit or a government agency, your web site will be a channel
through which you communicate with an audience. As such it will be part of your
marketing strategy and deserves the same scrutiny as your printed brochure, your
advertising and your sales force. Typically responsibility for the website will
fall under the heading of marketing or public relations. I've found it's always
best to assign one individual responsibility for the site development project
and to act as the intermediary between the organization and the developer.
2. Select and Secure a Domain Name
A domain
name (often inaccurately referred to as a URL) is simply the address at which
your site resides. You have the choice of acquiring your own domain name or 'piggy-backing'
on someone else's domain. There are many internet service providers out there
who will let you make use of their domain instead of buying your own. They will
simply put your website in a unique folder on their website and your address will
consist of their domain followed by the name of your folder. If you choose this
route, your domain name will be something like: www.superhostingcompany.com/~yourfoldername/index.html
But who has the patience to type all that? Instead, I recommend
you get your own unique domain name. Not only will the address be more attractive,
but it will be portable. That is, you'll be able to move it from one hosting service
to another and your address will remain constant. If you accept email it will
also be the suffix on your email address. For example, my domain name is www.gacwebsolutions.net
and my email address is: gary@gacwebsolutions.net
When choosing your domain name, obviously you want a name
that will be easy for people to remember. You also want it to be as short as possible
to minimize the amount of typing required and to make certain it will fit on your
business card. Finally, your domain name should either be closely related to your
company name or it should be descriptive. One of my clients, E.H. Osgood Associates,
decided to go with the domain name www.yachtsjets.com because it fits all three
criteria better than www.ehosgoodassociates.com (can you guess what they sell?).
I can help you decide on the best available name and register it for you.
3. Choose your Host
What is a host? A host
is simply a computer that is connected to the Internet 24/7 and has special software
installed that will make your Web site available to the Internet community. You
can invest in the hardware and maintenance to run your own host if you like but
I don't recommend it. Most people sign up with an ISP (Internet Service Provider)
to provide hosting for your site for a specific period of time. When
choosing a host, you want to take into consideration the setup cost, monthly rate,
reliability, amount of storage, number of email accounts, backup facility, and
any special plug-ins or capabilities your site will require. I can work with your
existing service provider or recommend the hosting service that is best suited
to your needs.
4. Plan, Plan, Plan!
This
is the step most often ignored by novices. The more time you spend planning your
site the more efficient the design process will be and the more effective your
site will be. After an initial telephone conversation, I will typically ask my
clients to fill out a survey that will help guide their thinking. Some of the
areas addressed are:
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| What's
the site's objective? To attract new dealers? Secure online orders? Educate? Introduce
new products? Get customer feedback? Reduce telephone inquiries? Minimize support
calls? Minimize postage expense? Can these objectives be quantified and measured?
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| • | Who
is the intended audience? Employees? Donors? The public? Current customers? Potential
customers? What kind of internet access will they likely have?
|
| • | What
will be communicated? Your image? Your capabilities? Your product line? Your prices?
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| • | What
resources will you allocate for the design process? Have you set a budget for
development? For ongoing maintenance? Will you be providing the copy? Do you have
other content to be included?
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• | Is
there information currently in use that will be incorporated into the website?
Your logo? Corporate colors? Corporate identity guidelines? A slogan? A brochure?
Lead sheets? Order forms? Will there be any trademark and/or copyright issues?
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| • | On
what basis does your company compete? Quality? Service? Price? How do you differentiate
yourself from your competitors? Would your customers agree with you?
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| • | Do
your competitors have websites? What do you think of their sites?
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| • | Have
you set a deadline for launching the site?
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| • | Who
will be responsible for monitoring the site's success, maintaining the site and
keeping its content fresh? |
5. Designing Your Site
Designing your site
will require applying current technologies and the resources you have available
to create a design that will meet your stated goals. This is always an iterative
process: I will provide mock-ups for your review and approval before actually
coding the site. We'll go back and forth refining the mock-ups until we're both
satisfied that the resulting site will achieve its objectives. Then I go to work
creating the site, testing it and launching it. This approach saves both time
and money.
6. Let the World Know!
Ok,
so your new site is up & running. But you can't just wait for the world to
beat an electronic path to your door. You're going to have to intensively market
your site in order to build some traffic. The following must be built into your
web plan:
| • | Your
website and e-mail addresses must be printed on everything. This includes business
cards, stationery, forms, brochures, print ads, packaging materials, corporate
vehicles, and promotional items. You may want to issue a press release announcing
the site.
| |
• | Register
your site with the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.). Getting listed
is easy. Getting prime top-of-page positioning is difficult. One of the key success
factors in the search engine business is objectivity. For this reason the search
engine companies are constantly refining the algorithm they use to "grade"
various sites and assign positioning. Because the set of criteria they use is
a moving target, and highly secret, no one can promise you first position, second
position, or even top ten position. I'll work with you to use keywords, your site
content and description, and links to achieve favorable positioning.
|
| • | Link
your site to other similar sites. By providing a special page for links to other
sites you will be providing a valuable service to your site's visitors. To some
extent you'll be eliminating the need to return to the search engine results page
to find other sites. Because you decide which links will appear on your site,
you are in effect controlling your visitor's movement. And by having the linked
sites appear in a new browser window your website will remain open! |
When linking to another site, it is customary
to ask permission. It is also customary to ask that the target site link back
to you. Make certain you do this. Not only will it provide new visitors to your
site but most search engines take the number and quality of links into consideration
when evaluating a site. The more quality sites linking into your site, the higher
your ranking with the search engines.
7.
Monitor the Site's Statistics & Measure its Results.
Your
hosting service will make your site's statistics available to you online. Unfortunately
these statistics are often very difficult to interpret. Worse still, many of the
statistics they will report are meaningless and even misleading. I can teach you
how to retrieve and interpret the data your host provides. If you prefer, I can
do this for you and provide a quarterly summary report. Don't
forget to regularly track how successful the site is at achieving the objectives
you set out during the planning process. Fortunately, web sites are dynamic (or
at least they should be!). If your website is not achieving its goals, we can
easily make adjustments until you have a web site that truly works for you!
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©
2004 gacWebSolutions
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