Developing Your Web Site:
Making Decisions on Content, Staffing,
Design, Schedule, Budget and Marketing
Copyright Ó 1999
Break Loose Media, Inc.
Before you’re ready to assign away the development of your
company’s web site, you should sit down and ask yourself (or your
colleagues) the following questions:
Content
What is your goal for your company’s web site?
Sales? Enhancing your company or brand image? To have a web site
address to put on your business card/letterhead? All of these reasons
are common reasons for wanting to develop a web site. Examining your
reasons may help you determine what the content of your web site
should be.
What are your competitors’ web sites like? While no one wants to
create a web site exactly like those of their competitors, it is
important to be familiar with industry standards. You can be sure that
by the time your customers visit your web site, many of them have
already seen those of your competitors.
What do you want to provide your customers with in addition to a
catalog of your products/services?
- Do you want to become a resource in your industry and have
customers return to your site frequently to view new
products/services or changes in the website? How about a
newsletter noting industry trends/events?
- Do you want to add extra service for your customers? How about
an industry tips page?
- Do you want to gauge customer reaction to products/services,
your company or your web site or discover additional customer
wants/needs? How about an online survey that offers incentive for
completion and submission?
- Do you want potential buyers to try out your product/services
while allowing your company to obtain their vital statistics for
your database of potential customers? How about offering a sample
and requiring them to input various information before receiving
it. This freebie could simply be access to your company
newsletter, tips or other valuable industry information, as well
as product.
- Do you want to show them how human and customer service-oriented
you are? How about a staff page with photos?
- Do you want to prove to them your longevity? How about a company
history page?
- Do you want to prove to them the quality of your
service/product? How about a page of references?
- Do you want to prove to them where you stand in the industry?
How about a page listing awards you’ve won for your work?
- Do you want to REALLY explain to them what kind of company you
are? How about a page with a mission statement or company
philosophy?
- Do you want to cut down on the number of calls that come in to
your customer service people about the same issues? How about an
f.a.q. (frequently asked questions) page?
- Do you want to recruit new employees, sales reps or
distributors? How about a recruiting page for any or all of these?
- Do you want to add traffic to your site while providing extra
service to your customers? How about a mutual links page, allowing
informative, non-competing web sites to link to your site in
exchange for you linking back to theirs?
- Do you want to prove how large you are? How about a page with a
map, allowing customers to click on a state and obtain a list of
distributors in that state?
How do you want to provide visitors with products/services
information? You may have obvious categories to help divide your
products/services. You may choose to divide them into the industries
they apply to, i.e., potential customers viewing your
products/services may be coming from different industries, and you may
choose to divide them according to which products/services apply to
each industry. You may choose to highlight new products/services.
These choices affect the site’s navigation and appearance.
Staffing
Who is the primary overseer of the project? Choose
one person or group of people that will stick with the project all the
way through. When you have one person doing the planning and another
the reviewing, often their ideas of what the web site should be are
not the same. This can lead to wasted time, energy and money. This
primary overseer should also be responsible for updating the web site
to keep it fresh and dynamic.
Design
What are your graphic design goals for this site:
photos, colors, icons, logos? What sites have you seen that you would
like to emulate, graphically speaking? Maybe you would like to emulate
existing marketing materials. Maybe you don’t care. As long as the
primary developer knows where you are coming from before development
of the web site.
Schedule
What is your time frame? What portions of the web
site do you want to have done when?
Budget
Have you set a budget? Don’t forget to reserve a
portion of your budget for marketing. Once you have developed your web
site, it is important to remember that you need to market the web site
both online and through other media to make sure people can locate
your website. With the influx of new websites, it is likely that you
have a lot of online competition. Developing a website without
marketing it is akin to establishing a shop in a mall with hundreds of
thousands of other shops including your competitors and not being
listed in the mall directory, telephone directory or other media.
Marketing
(See Marketing Your Web
Site)
Set aside your time or the time of a staff member (preferably the
primary overseer of web site development) to become Internet savvy.
Although you can hire out tasks such as looking up competitors’ web
sites, submitting your site to search engines, and researching
industry directories/listings, it is in your best interest in the long
run to have someone on staff who can quickly respond to email,
participate in and become a recognizable resource in online industry
newsgroups, and generally keep up with the volatile nature of the
Internet as a marketing medium.
Online research for marketing your web site:
- What search engines should you be listed in?
- What businesses do you have relationships with that have
websites and might consider a free cross (mutual) link?
- What keywords should you use for search engine indexing? (What
keywords are your competitors using and how many entries are
displayed in response to those keywords?)
- What industry resources/directories/listings are out there that
you might consider listing your site with or purchasing online
advertising from?
- Where else might be a valuable location for your banner ad?
- What newsgroups should you frequent to become a recognizable
resource in?
For more information or to set up a meeting with Break Loose Media
to discuss web site development and marketing options, call
773-755-3657.
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