Building Your Website For the New Internet

It is more true than ever - every business should have a web site.  The Web is now an accepted research tool for basic business, allowing anyone wishing to know more about you or your business easy access to that basic information.  In the past five years, many businesses learned, some the hardest way, what works on the Web.  Whether you are deciding to put up a web site or revamp your old one, you might want to learn from those who have gone before.

ROI
Nearly every business decision can be reduced to its return on investment (ROI).  Creating a web site is no different.  Decide what your business expectations are for the web site, obtain the production quote and then calculate what might be the site's ROI before you start production.  Whatever its purpose, even if the site serves only as a digital business card for your business, calculate whether its cost serves this purpose well.  With both development and hosting costs plummeting in the present environment, it is easier than ever to generate a positive ROI on your site.

Don't forget to calculate all your 'operating' costs of running the website.  Include hosting, designer / developer charges, content changing, email, etc.

Look and Feel
Decide what message your site will convey and then state that message as clearly and as succinctly as possible.  Avoid dark colored backgrounds and multiple colors in template frames.  Remember, although the Web is a visual medium, you do not want flashy, slow-loading graphics or pounding music and garish background colors to tell your story.  More and more visitors view these graphic displays as annoying and are clicking off the site before the load is completed.  Also steer clear of lengthy, jargon-filled text.  The number of ""best of breed"" products or services claimed on web sites clearly exceeds the number of products or services actually purchased by customers from the web.  The idea is to state, rather than obscure, your message.  Make the site navigation very simple and fast.  Move visitors quickly to where they - and you - want to go.  Do not put any obstacles in their way.

Be In Business
Your web site is an extension of your business, so remember to be in your business, not the software business.  Put contact information on every page.  Make it very simple for both existing and new customers to research or order new products and to complete transactions.  Keep your customer service access information readily available.  Keep your logo and contact information on every page - beside the positive branding aspects, users should know exactly where to look to find you.

Keep Content Current
It is essential in the ""new"" Internet to keep site content fresh, especially when so many companies are paying little attention to site content.  Visitors may assume that you are out of business by repeated visits with the same content.  More and more site publishers are discovering the new generation of inexpensive fairly robust content management systems (CMS).  They are hosted applications which are easy and inexpensive to maintain and update content.  They allow for increased interactivity and data management at the clerical level and avoid expensive interventions from developers.  (NOTE:  The SBW site runs on CMLite™ from MadTek, a basic hosted content manager that took our editorial staff about 15 minutes to learn how to use.)

Do Your Technical Homework
During development, make sure that the site has been tested with all the popular browsers (all recent versions) and monitors.  Your graphics and colors will look different from one display monitor to the next, so test several.  Especially note the differences between Windows and Mac (Apple) systems.  Also note the difference in web site performance reporting packages and install the one that works best for your user tracking needs.

When building or changing your web site, remember to keep it simple, informative and fast.  Above all, keep it inexpensive by keeping it in perspective.