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Making the Most of Your Web Site
An effective web site provides useful, timely information, and portrays your company as professional, capable and organized. If you’re thinking of creating (or overhauling) a web site, make the commitment to build an attractive, informative, carefully-planned site, and keep it updated!
Planning a New Web Site
Even if you’re hiring someone to create your site, you need to do some homework first. Write down the answers to these questions. What are your goals for the web site? What do you want it to accomplish? Who is your target audience? What do they want to know?
Do Some Research
Print out copies of sites you like, making notes as to what you like about them. This will help you form an idea about how you want your site to be organized.
Outline Your Site
Imagine your site as a pyramid; visualize the most important stuff at the top (your home page). Less important information will occupy the lower tiers (pages). Create a written outline to organize the information you'd like to have in your site. This will help you structure your home page, and give you an idea how many pages you'll need.
Write Your Text (Content)
Unless you’re hiring out the copywriting, your next step is to write the content for each page in your site. Use plain English—the web is not the place for stuffiness. Keep your goals in mind.
Keep Your Content Brief
In theory, your web pages could scroll endlessly. Don’t do this; people are impatient. Keep the text as brief as possible, and divide information among several linked pages so the visitor can choose his or her own path.
Make Sure the Site Accomplishes Its Purpose
Focus on information that is useful to your web visitors. Tell them how you can help make their jobs easier, improve their lives, give them great benefits, etc. Anticipate and answer questions your visitors might have. Lead them to take action.
Make it Useful
The best sites include info on helpful topics, “how-to” articles, FAQs, etc. This buys you credibility as an expert, and lets people know you’re interested in more than just selling to them. Use a different type of link or button to call attention to these “feature” type items.
Add links to other sites your visitors might find useful, but put them on lower-level pages. This way you won’t encourage people to leave your site until they’ve already seen most of it.
Keep it Fresh!
Update your site quarterly, at least. Add new articles or info to give people a reason to come back. Don’t use the “last updated” phrase unless you update often.
Tips for a Better Web Site
- Make sure the critical information on your home page fits neatly into a rectangle of 640 x 460 pixels.
- Make the site easy to navigate. Give visual clues to tell people where they are within the site. Never make links that link to the page you are already on!
- If you provide an email link, be sure to respond promptly to all incoming messages.
- Don’t go overboard with graphics. Pages should download quickly. Avoid gimmicks (animation, sound, etc.) unless they enhance your message.
- Provide contact information in an easy-to-find place, but not at the top of the home page.
- Use a spell checker. Typos make you look bad.
- Promote your site! Register with multiple search engines. Include your url on your business cards, ads, flyers, etc. Send postcards to let people know when your site has something new.
Can You Do it Yourself?
If all you need is a simple site with a few pages, you can build it yourself (see Here’s How). If you don’t have time, or if you’d like a more polished look, you can hire a web designer. If you need databases, forms or other special features, you’ll need to hire a web design company that can also do programming.
How Much Does a Web Site Cost?
There is a tremendous variation in the cost, quality and complexity of a web site. For $250 you can probably get a few very basic pages, or a prefab design (you supply the text). Pricey designers might charge as much as $50,000 to develop a typical 30-page site. I would shoot for something in the middle: about $250 per page for a basic site with a nice design. Shop around! And remember, you’ll also have to pay for domain registration and web hosting (see Here’s How).
