Last week we talked about how a poor web page can do your company more harm than excellent. That column brought several emails asking what is the key to building an efficient company internet site. I replied with the exact same answer I often give: building an successful enterprise internet site is really a very simple matter of definition.
Just before the initial graphic is drawn or the 1st line of code is written, you must define the website's budget, purpose, target audience, design, navigation, and content. And when that's all said and done you must define the marketing that can bring visitors to your website.
It sounds simple, but you'd be amazed at how several genuinely bad business sites you'll find out there. Yours may possibly even be one of them. If so, listen up. For nearly ten years now my corporation has been building and rebuilding web pages for every single type of organization it is possible to imagine: from mom-and-pops to multinationals. We've created (or redesigned) a couple hundred internet websites and along the way I have come to the conclusion that most company internet sites do a pitiful job of working for their owners.
What's that, you didn't know your enterprise web-site will need to work for you? You feel it must just sit on a server somewhere taking up digital space and collecting digital dust?
Wrong. Each and every internet site, company or otherwise, must serve a purpose, and that's commonly where most internet websites falls short. They serve no purpose simply because the web page owner by no means gave much thought to it. It's not the website's fault. A web site is inanimate. It really is only what you make it. The only life a web-site has is the 1 given to it by its designer and owner. If the human element doesn't do a great job of defining the building blocks, the website will serve no purpose and eventually die a digital death.
Building an efficient company web-site isn't brain surgery, thank goodness, because that's how I make a nice percentage of my living. Building an successful, well-designed internet site that works for its owner, that truly serves a purpose, is all about definition.
Define the Budget
Each web-site, no matter how significant or small, must have a realistic spending budget, with "realistic" being the key word. I can't tell you how lots of times I've sat with a potential client as they listed off the eight million cool things they wanted their site to do, only to discover that their budget was just a couple of hundred dollars. I usually feel like saying, "Well you just wasted 3 hundred dollars of my time, so here's your bill."
Define the Purpose
Every single site should have a purpose. Purpose drives everything: the audience, the design, the navigation, the content, and the marketing. I could do an whole column on purpose, but suffice it to say that you'll find five categories of purpose under which most sites fall: the purpose to inform, to educate, to entertain, to generate leads, to sell, or a combination thereof. If you fail to define the purpose of the web site, all else is just wasted effort.
Define the Target Audience
Your target audience refers to that segment of the public that you hope to attract to the website. For example in the event you sell shoes, your target audience could be any person with feet. Taking it a step further, if you only sold women's shoes, your target audience could be ladies (with feet) Why is defining your target audience so significant? If you have no idea who your audience is, how can you expect to design a website which will appeal to them? Your target audience could possibly be buyers, investors, job seekers, info seekers, etc. Define your target audience, then figure out how to serve them.
Define the Design
Website design theory has changed over the last couple of years, primarily since the search engines now ignore graphic heavy websites and give preference to those that take a minimalistic approach to design. If you look at some of the big boy web sites like GE, Oracle, Raytheon, HP, and other people you'll see that in numerous cases the only graphic on the homepage is the company's logo. Search engines now give higher preference to internet websites that provide keyword-rich text over flashy graphics. Do not fight the design trend. You will lose.
Define the Navigation
Poor navigation is the number one reason internet site visitors abandon a website. Navigation refers to the chain of links the visitor uses to get around your website. If your site has an illogical navigational hierarchy or too couple of or too numerous links or is just impossible to get around, you've got issues. We live in a microwave society. We stand in front of the microwave tapping our foot and glaring at our watch wondering why it takes so damn lengthy for a bag of popcorn to pop. Why can't a three-minute egg be performed in thirty seconds? If it takes a visitor far more than three clicks to get to any page on your site, your navigation requirements improvement.
Define the Content
Content refers to the data on your internet site, be it graphics, text, downloadable items, etc. Because the top search engines no longer use HTML Meta tag data to index websites, it's essential that your web site content be text heavy, succinct and well-written to appeal to the search engine spiders.
Define the Develop Strategy
Next, who will create the web page for you? Will you do it yourself utilizing one of the point and click web site builders or will you hire the kid next door? Will you hire a freelance designer or a professional firm? Budget usually dictates the build technique, but be warned, when it comes to internet site development, you get what you pay for. Sure, the kid next door will throw up a site for you should you purchase them a pizza or make your daughter go to the prom with them, but you will end up a having a web site that looks like and performs like it was created by the kid next door.
Define the Advertising
Should you build it, will they come? Not on your life, a minimum of not without a good marketing campaign. Your web page need to turn out to be a part of all your marketing efforts, on the web and off.
Put the web page address on your business cards, brochures, letterhead, and all collaterals. Consist of the address within your ads; print, TV and radio. Should you prefer to do online marketing, determine where your target audience surfs and advertise there.
If marketing is foreign to you, do yourself a favor and call in an expert. A lot of businesses fail due to the fact they basically don't know tips on how to marketplace their items and services effectively. This is also the downfall of most business sites.
Author Resource:
If you want to learn how to become a profit monarch , visit my site at http://www.jyaga.com/profit-monarch
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