Website Design Considerations
By Tim Knox
As Presented to the 1999 Montgomery Association of Business Communications Seminar
Montgomery, Alabama
Thursday, June 10, 1999
So you've finally decided that your business needs a website. Well, good for you! A well-thought-out and executed website can be a tremendous asset to your business. Today, a website is as important a marketing tool as your business card and brochure. On the other hand, a hastily thrown together, ill considered website can actually do your business more harm than good.
How can you make sure that your website is a business plus instead of a business minus? Start by asking yourself the following questions.
STEP ONE: Ask Yourself The Obvious
The obvious question here is, "Does my business really need a website?"
Unequivocably, the answer should be a resounding, "Yes!" If you are doing business in the 90's and hope to continue doing business well into the future, you do need a website. Like it or not, more and more business transactions will be conducted over the internet within the next decade than through any other medium. If your business is not on the net you are going to miss out.
It's been estimated that online sales will top the $400 billion mark by the year 2002, with $25 billion of that going to small businesses by the end of 1999 alone. 20 million shoppers are now online, purchasing everything from books to computers to cars to real estate to jet airplanes. These numbers alone should be enough to convince you that yes, your business might need a website.
In fact, everyday as more and more people discover the internet and it's ease and convenience of use, it will become imperative that your business have a website. You need to establish what's known as a "web presence" if you're going to compete in the business world of today and the business world of the future. It's also imperative that you establish your web presence now, before your competitors get too far ahead of you.
So yes, your business should have a website. Even if that website is nothing more than a single scanned image of your brochure or business card, you should have a website. Even if it is nothing more than the name and address of your business and phone number in big flashing letters on a single HTML page, you should have a website. Even if it is simply for the sake of coming to a function such as this and being able to say, "Why yes, I'm on the internet!" you should have a website.
It's like those popular "You might be a redneck if" jokes. "If you're looking for a handy place to sell old truck tires.... you might need a website."
STEP TWO: Ask yourself the not-so-obvious.
Now that you realize (hopefully) that your business should have a website, you must do a bit of planning and thinking before the actual building process can begin. There are several important questions you should ask yourself before you rush out and buy the latest web building software package or hire a hotshot web designer to put your site together. Get out a pen and paper and jot down the answers to the following questions. Take your time and give them some thought. These are not decisions to be taken lightly.
1. What is the purpose of my website?
Give an extra bit of thought to this question before writing down your answer because what you say here will determine the initial direction your website building process takes. However, to avoid over-analyzing the question, keep your final answer brief and to the point. Try synopsizing the purpose of your website in a sentence or to, keep it to 25 words or less. Imagine you're writing a blurb for TV Guide.
"The purpose of my website is to sell my used truck tires to people around the world."
"The purpose of my website is to sell my artwork online."
"The purpose of my website will be to have a convenient online brochure that I can refer people to when I don't have any business cards."
2. What should I include on my website?
This question can best be answered by determining the nature of your business. If you're a real estate agent you might want to feature photographs of homes you have for sale. If you are a mechanic you might want to feature before and after photographs of cars that you have repaired. If you're a writer for hire you could feature samples of your work and a list of satisfied clients. In other words, you should consider your website the electronic branch of your business. Your website should reflect what your business is all about.
As an internet consultant, I've had clients ask me to look at their website and figure out why it wasn't bringing them any business. "I put up a webpage with pictures and everything and I haven't gotten one call from it! Look, I've got flashing graphics and dancing babies and everything!"
Nine times out of ten the problem is poor website design. Either their website is so poorly set up that users can't find their way around or the photographs on the site were of their vacation to DisneyWorld. I've seen business websites that featured hundreds of links to the business owner's favorite websites rather than information about their business.
If you sell shoes, put shoes on your website. If you cut hair, feature photographs showing the latest styles. If you are in the carpet cleaning or other service business, fill your site with before and after photographs of your work and client testimonials that say what great work you do.
In short, think about what best represents your business and incorporate that into the design of your site. And remember, DisneyWorld vacation photos and dancing babies are extremely out of place on a business website, unless or course, you're Disney.com.
3. Will my website ever change?
Someone once said that a website is like a cute baby. Everybody wants one until it needs changing. Nothing could be closer to the truth.
It's important that you realize when used wisely and correctly, a website can actually bring you business that you might not otherwise get. And one of the best ways to build that business is to give users a reason to come back to your site. If your page never changes, why would anyone have a reason for coming back? That's why it's vital that before you begin building your site, you carefully consider what will go on your pages and how often -- if ever-- the content will change.
It's always a good idea to have some kind of "revolving content" on your site to give potential and current customers a reason to come back for more. Revolving content is simply any content on the page that changes every so often to keep the page timely and fresh.
Featuring a different weekly special on your website is a good example of revolving content. So is offering electronic coupons that customers can print out and bring in to your store for redemption. Offering pertinent information and links related to your business is another great way to keep customers coming to your site. If you own a bakery, feature a recipe of the week. If you're a doctor, have an "Ask The Doc" feature wherein you encourage users to email medical questions to you and once or twice a week you pick one email, write a few paragraphs in response to the question asked and post your response on your website. If you clean carpets or sell truck tires, ask satisfied customers to give you a sentence or two telling how great your service was, then post these customer cudos on your webpage. I think you get the idea.
A website that changes once in a while is always preferable to one that does not. And this leads to the next question...
4. Should I build the website myself or hire a company to do it for me?
As a Site Designer, you can guess what my standard response to that question is. But to be fair, just let me say this: building and maintaining a website can either be a pleasure or a pain. It all depends on who's doing the work.
A doctor I consulted with had a website that was going to require frequent updating and he couldn't understand why I was trying to sell him on the concept of a site maintenance contract instead of trying to teach him to do the work himself.
"You show me how to do it and I'll keep it updated myself," he said.
"Fine," I responded. "You pay me in antibiotics and next time I get a cold I'll just cure it myself." He went for the maintenance contract.
It is true that nowadays you can purchase "what you see is what you get" software that will walk you through the process of building a simple site yourself. However, if your site is going to be anything more than a page or two of static text or is going to require frequent updates, your money will be better spent hiring a competent web designer to at least do the initial design work for you. After the site is up and running you can pay the designer to teach you how to update the site on your own or work out a maintenance agreement with the designer for the updates. Most updates require less than an hour of the designer's time, which can range from$15 to $50 an hour, depending on the designer and the level of effort the update will entail.
A word of caution regarding web designers is warranted here. While it's true that website design is best left to the experts, be warned: these days everybody and their mother believes they can design websites.
"What do I do for a living? Well, I recap used truck tires during the day, but I'm a web designer at night! Here, let me give you one of my cards in case you ever need a site designed."
Also, it should not cost thousands of dollars to have a good website built. Most simple sites should cost $300 to $500, depending on the number of pages and custom graphics required. Even advanced sites can be built for $2,000 to $3,000 complete. Again, this price depends on the amount of custom work required. You'll find the price goes up considerably if custom scripting or programming is required.
Shop around for a web designer. Estimates can range from $100 to $100,000 for the exact same job depending on who's giving you the estimate. Why the wide range of cost? You're paying for the larger design firm's reputation and track record, not necessarily their work. Still, sometimes you get what you pay for.
5. Who is my target audience?
One mistake that many business people make when it comes to the design of their website is forgetting to take their target audience into account. Correctly identifying your target audience is essential to the success of your website. Who is your target audience? Your customers, of course. Anyone who might be interested in your particular product or service is a member of your target audience.
Now design to your target audience. Put yourself in your their place. Imagine your website through their eyes. If you were shopping for a product or service such as yours what would you like to see on a website. What would you expect to find? What would you be disappointed not to find? Identify your target audience and cater to them at every turn.
6. What's my competition doing?
The last question you need to ask is probably the most important. What is your competition doing on the web? Fortunately, checking out your competition is on the web is much easier than donning dark glasses and a trenchcoat to go snooping about their store.
Do a Yahoo search on businesses like your own or identify competitors in your area and visit their websites. How are their websites designed? Are they aesthetically pleasing or are they an insult to the eyes? Are they doing a good job of selling products or are they just vanity pages for the owner? What do you like about your competitors' websites? What don't you like? Make not of the things you like and forget the things you hate. You're not stealing trade secrets here. You're just borrowing ideas.
7. Should I Master My Own Domain?
URL stands for Universal Resource Locator and it is the computer addressing system that helps users locate websites on the internet. I won't get too technical here other than to say that every web server on the internet is assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) address, a series of numbers that identify that particular server. The URL is a site's internet address.
AOL.com is a URL. So is Amazon.com. So is www.tbe.com and www.yahoo.com. The question for you, the business owner, is, "Should you secure your own custom web URL if it's available or just use one assigned by your Internet Service Provider?"
When you sign up for internet service your ISP will give you (or sell you) enough space on their server to post your website, usually 2 to 5 megabytes. Once you upload your site to the ISP's server you are on the web. The problem is you don't have a very memorable web address.
For example, if your ISP is Mindspring.com your internet address would be http://www.mindspring.com/~yourusername. This works, but it really doesn't say much for the professional image of your business. It would be much better to a web address that your customers could remember. Something like www.your_business_name.com.
This is why you should invest $70 with InterNic (the organization that oversees URL naming conventions and ownership) and get a URL that better represents your business. Your ISP can help you do this or you can do it yourself by going to Networksolutions.com and following the directions. You can reserve the name yourself and InterNic will bill your for $70 ($119 if you don't have an ISP hosting account set up). This fee reserves your URL name for 2 years.
One note: if your business has a common name, don't be surprised if the URL you want is already be taken. Think of variations that you can use. If you're adament about having a particular business URL you can contact the current owner and offer to buy it from them. However, this can be a very expensive purchase.
STEP THREE: Let the construction begin.
Congratulations! If you have answered the above questions you have effectively poured the foundation on which your website will be built. Look at what you have accomplished so far. You've identified the purpose of your site. You've decided what content your website will contain and how often that content will change. You have identified your target audience and checked out your competitors and reserved your domain name. And you've either hired a (hopefully) top notch web designer to do the work for you or you've decided to do the work yourself. Either way, it's time to get down to business and get your website built!
STEP FOUR: So what do I do now?
Building a website is the easy part. Putting it to good use, now that's hard. Here you are with this great new site and you have no idea what to do with it. Now's the time to do some smart marketing. And that's a whole 'nother subject...
Tim Knox is an Internet designer, developer, author and teacher. He is the Creative Director of Digital Graphiti. In a prior life, Tim was an award-winning humor columnist and cartoonist. His current writing projects include a book on web development for SAM's Publishing.
Email Tim at tim@digitalgraphiti.com or visit his personal website at http://www.timknox.com.
