Knowledge Archives
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Ten Basic Steps for Building a Click-ready Web Site
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by
Lee Traupel
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1) Assemble a web site development plan that is
integrated with your overall marketing processes; the
content should be consistent with offline materials,
the graphics/images don't have to be identical with
traditional media, but should be consistent with your
overall branding, style guide, usage of colors etc.

2) Hire a web site design firm that understands your
market position and one that won't get "geek crazy" -
meaning they are so in love with their own design
capabilities, your site gets bogged down with
graphics, plug ins, GIF garbage, etc. But, conversely,
check your ego at the door when you work with your
design firm - I've see so many good web site designs
get ruined by clients who can't or won't listen to
what we tell them!

3) Pay attention to "load times," how long it takes a
web site to load on a 56 KBPS modem (this is an
industry average), if its more than 12-18 seconds you
may experience the "click of death" - the site doesn't
load quickly and the surfer is gone. Of course if your
targeting broadband customers who are reaching your
site via ISDN or DSL then you can build a site that
incorporates multimedia-ready content that may include
streaming audio or vide, or Shockwave or Flash
capabilities - go ahead and let those digital geeks
get carried away with cutting edge content!

4) Dare I say it, "keep it simple" - make your site
easy to move around in, build a menu structure that is
consistent with industry standards, local menus (for a
page or section) on the left and global menus (overall
site navigation) at the top and/or bottom of each
page, keep as much information "above the fold" (above
the cutoff point at the bottom of a monitor), don't
make people use horizontal scroll bars unless
absolutely necessary.

5) Inculcate "digital speed" into your overall site
design, your client/customers should be able to get to
their desired area of your site within one or two
mouse clicks; they will quickly get frustrated if they
have to clickthrough multiple menus to find
information they are seeking.

6) Develop content that is web-enabled, people don't
read web site content like they do offline media, keep
your paragraphs short no more than two to three
sentences, build in white space with your content,
include links in your pages - don't try to tell your
whole marketing story on your site - get people to
call you (hello the telephone still works!), e-mail or
fill out a profile form (see below).

7) Make your site permission-based marketing ready - I
love Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing" book
http://www.permission.com/ and we recommend it to all
of our clients - he champions building a long term
relationship with a customer by asking their
permission to continue to market to them and
incorporating value/information in all marcom
processes.

8) Ensure your site is optimized for Search Engines by
identifying 8-12 keywords that people will use to find
your site, then incorporate these keywords in your
site content (to drive relevancy with s/engine
spiders/bots) and then manually submit your site to
the top ten search engines. We don't' recommend most
of the free or $19.99 specials available (sidebar: my
company WBI, Inc. is in this business
http://www.wolfblast.com) yes, all will get your
registered with the s/engines, but getting listed on
page 75 of 350 pages (for example) won't really drive
qualified traffic to your site, you need page 1-3
listings on the top ten engines to really drive
qualified traffic. And, this typically requires
incorporating some very specialized processes and
technologies.

9) Delve into your log server files to uncover
"digital tracks" made through your web site - your log
files are raw files that show how and from where (in
most cases) people accessed your web site, where they
went on your web site, how long they stayed, etc. Web
Trends is the defacto industry standard,
< http://www.webtrends.com/default.htm > but we use and
recommend a market-experienced firm in Europe,
Fantomaster, Ltd. to our clients
< http://www.fantomaster.com > - they have a suite of
Search Engine products that can be downloaded for free
or purchased.

10) Think global in your overall site design - the
greatest Internet growth is occurring outside North
America, so it is essential to build a site that can
be accessed easily by people around the world. What
issues do you need to look at? Load times are very
important (again), develop content that avoids
colloquialisms that may not be understood by others
who may not speak the same language, you may want to
make your site content available in diverse languages,
there are a number of emerging applications that will
facilitate this process, ensure your ecommerce
capabilities can be utilized by all.

This text may freely be republished or distributed in unmodified form provided the following resource box is included intact either at the beginning or the end of the article and a complimentary copy or notice (link) is sent to the author at the address specified below:

Ralph Tegtmeier is the co-founder and principal of fantomaster.com GmbH (Belgium), < http://fantomaster.com/ >, a company specializing in webmasters software development, industrial-strength cloaking and search engine positioning services.

He has been a web marketer since 1994 and is editor-in-chief of fantomNews, a free newsletter focusing on search engine optimization, available at: < http://fantomaster.com/fantomnews-sub.html > You can contact him at mailto:fneditor@fantomaster.com
(c) copyright 2002 by fantomaster.com
All rights reserved.
Downloaded at: < http://fantomaster.com/ >