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In the increasingly competitive web world, a company’s site must be more than eye-catching. Learn from the pros about how to develop truly effective web sites.
By Joyce Romine
Most browsers have been through the hair-pulling frustration of visiting a web site only to wait... and wait... and wait... for the information and graphics to download. OK, maybe it’s also time for users to upgrade their computer systems to speed things up a bit. But ultimately most web site developers need to plan for low-end users’ visits, says Jeff Phillips, president of Mindstep Corporation.
Mindstep provides web technology planning, development and management services to a national group of clients.
“If a web page takes a long time to appear, the visitor won’t stick around and wait,” he says. “Many web site developers overuse unnecessary technology, adding download time and special plug-in software requirements to the process. A web site should be fast, efficient, and the content needs to be logically organized so that the most frequently requested information visitors seek is also the most readily available. While this sounds like a simple concept, I regularly discover newly produced web sites that conceal the most important information by burying it four, five or even six levels deep. A web site should quickly fulfill the user’s needs and look great, simultaneously.”
Steps to Success
Web sites require a great deal of strategic planning prior to any actual development, Phillips says. “As a first step, we meet with our client and perform an extensive analysis to determine which processes in his or her business may be enhanced with web technology. Next, we’ll determine what other marketing methods are currently used, and develop a strategy to integrate the web site smoothly, while maintaining a consistent corporate voice and image.”
Toward that end, Phillips recommends that companies register multiple versions of their domain name to protect their trademarks and brands. “Although it’s not typical, we’ve even seen a few companies register multiple domain names that include derogatory references, to prevent the unlikely situation where a disgruntled employee or dissatisfied customer might create his or her own web site using a domain name that is not in the best interest of the company.”
Grant Weber, founder and chief technology strategist of Habañero Computing Solutions, Inc., says creating a web site is like starting a new business—you need a business plan.
“When creating web sites you have to think further ahead to consider both online and offline marketing and the issues such as legal, sales tax, international laws and privacy laws,” Weber says. “Because of competitive pressures, clients are tempted to shortcut the process. But the process must include a strategic review and assessment of the marketplace and existing processes.”
Image and marketing sites should be interactive and provide a way to get in touch with the end user, Weber says. “You have to build use by giving the site value and a reason to visit. Many web sites fail, because companies don’t keep the information fresh or add value so people don’t come back to the site again. The biggest reason for failure comes from not taking the time in the development process to think and plan strategically.”
He continues: “Rather than looking at a web site as this huge, overwhelming thing, our clients should break it down and determine what the priorities are. Then we can help them figure out what to do with the new technology from beginning to end to avoid the pitfalls.”
Another key step in developing a web site is to assemble the right team for the job, Weber says. “For the best results, companies must have internal resources dedicated to working on the web site with the consulting professionals.”
He finds marketing and information technology departments generally spearhead web site development for companies.
Phillips agrees. “The most successful team consists of representatives from both departments,” he says. “However, we often gain some very clever insight into a company’s business needs through interviewing everyone from the CEO of a company to the interns.”
The next steps after the analysis and review are programming, design, launching and promoting the web site.
Phillips says the primary goal in web site development is to deliver the information that the visitor seeks as quickly and intuitively as possible. “Our rule is three clicks or less,” he says.
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“The primary goal in web site development is to deliver the information that the visitor seeks as quickly and intuitively as possible. Our rule is three clicks or less.”
—Jeff Phillips, President
of Mindstep Corporation
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Form, Function and Beauty
With the tremendous potential of web sites, many companies and individuals have jumped on the bandwagon of launching eye-catching web sites and disregarding functionality. It’s a pet peeve of Bob Niemeier, director of marketing for Just Call, Inc., a web site development firm based in St. Louis.
“People often don’t realize there are different rules for print and the web,” he says. “Print has a linear design, and you can use nearly unlimited colors while you’re limited to the 216 ‘web-safe’ colors on the computer. In addition, print pieces don’t bring expectations of interactivity, while web users do expect it.”
He also recommends pages be designed to be modular in nature, so they can be easily updated or changed over time as the web site grows.
And what about the content? “A common mistake companies make is saying ‘here’s my brochure, now make it into a web site,’” according to Niemeier. “When you write for the web, you need to use half the number of words you would use in print. You’re writing for scannability with careful use of headings, boldface and italics.”
A consistent challenge in the web world is to create a site that crosses many browsers. To understand the complexity of the web, just look at the numbers: America Online has at least 48 versions of its browser while Netscape has nine versions.
“Many clients don’t realize that the same web page can look and perform vastly different, depending on many criteria, including the browser the site is being viewed with,” Mindstep’s Phillips says. “Part of our expertise is our knowledge of the various capabilities of today’s browsers, and staying abreast of each browser’s popularity in the Internet community. At Mindstep, we have a viewing room with six computers: one of each platform, configured with browsers reaching back to version 1.0 of Mosaic. This assures our clients that their web presence will perform the best possible for the maximum number of people.”
Phillips adds, it’s essential to determine who your web site audience is whenever possible—a step that’s often ignored in the industry. “Knowing the demographics of who you are trying to reach and what their computer capabilities are helps you tailor your site to their needs. A web site created for young children may require a different interface design than a web site intended for teenagers or senior citizens.”
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Above: Grant Weber, founder Habañero Computing Solutions, Inc.
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Attracting Visitors
In 1995, you could actually count the mere 2,250 web sites on the Internet. Today, no one knows just how many sites are out there but the numbers are at least in the millions and growing every day.
But you have this great web site in place. Now how do you cut through the clutter and get customers there?
Search engines are one way to get people to your site, although there is some disagreement in the industry about search engines’ effectiveness.
But Just Call’s Niemeier says 80 percent of traffic to a site comes from search engines. “The search engines are like the Yellow Pages of the Internet,” he says. “Most people look in search engines to find a web site.”
The trick to making search engines effective is to understand how they work, Niemeier says. “Each search engine has a different criteria for how it ranks pages. If your site is not ranked in the top 20 you may as well not have a site.”
He advises clients to carefully choose the words in the title of the page and make them as specific to their business as possible. “If a key group of words are close together in the title, that may rank the site higher,” Niemeier says. “That’s why the phrase ‘Welcome to our home page’ is not effective. Other search engines may look at the text on the page itself looking for key words. The more often the word is used, the higher the ranking.”
Niemeier also recommends using multiple domain names for the same site to increase traffic.
Phillips of Mindstep says in addition to registering the company domain name in search engines and distributing press releases both traditionally and electronically, promoting a company web site must become a directive from management to be most effective. “The push should come from the top down so everyone makes promoting and using the site a priority,” he says. “The web address should be on every piece of printed material that comes from the company. Then sales people need to communicate the address to their customers.”
Phillips also recommends sending a direct mailer announcing the launch of the site, and regular submissions into the most popular search engines.
Grant Weber of Habañero adds that targeted linking—increasing traffic by linking related sites at little or no cost—can be an effective way to promote a site.
The Future of Web Sites
Weber envisions web sites as taking an increasingly important role in our day-to-day lives both at home and in the workplace.
“On the consumer side, we’re just a couple years away from being able to turn our appliances on and off at home through a web site,” he says. “For businesses, web sites have enormous potential to streamline operations by taking disparate functions and decentralizing information, presenting it in a unified format.”
Phillips says companies are starting to expand their web projects, requesting solutions that were considered risky just a few years ago. “Three years ago, companies just wanted a web site because everyone else had one,” he says. “Now they understand that a web site may be used for much more than advertising. We’re developing sites that connect to corporate accounting databases, providing customers with access to their own account information during non-business hours. The exact same web technology, used internally in an organization as an intranet, is becoming the popular method that companies provide their staff with access to all corporate information.”
He continues: “Extranets are becoming more popular as well. They allow companies to collaborate and communicate privately with customers and vendors, sharing information important to both groups, and allowing them to work more efficiently.”
Niemeier says one of the most exciting things about the future of the web is its potential. “The web is awesome for niche marketing,” he says. “There are no barriers. With a well-designed web site, entrepreneurs can run an international business from anywhere in the world without the expense of a retail store. With the continued growth of the web and increased technology, the possibilities are endless for almost any kind of business.”
Joyce Romine is a St. Louis-based writer and owner of Streamline Communications.
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