“What’s your web address?” “I’ll check your website for more information.” We all hear these questions and comments during discussions with our customers and colleagues. A website has become essential to business in the 21^st century, and almost every business is “on the web.” But like every marketing piece, a website is only as valuable as the thought and creativity put into it. You wouldn’t welcome your customers into a poorly lighted, dingy office—and that same concern for your business image must be reflected in the quality of your website.

Back to the Basics

As a facet of your overall marketing plan, a website must have a clear objective and must leverage technology effectively and creatively to achieve that objective. It must illustrate the features and benefits of your products and services, and must appeal to your target audience.

Defining your objectives is the first step in developing a website. There are two fundamental reasons why your business should have a website: to make money and/or to save money. If your objective is to generate income, you are most likely planning an e-commerce site. The strategies to support your objective would include facilitating the purchase process; specifically by making it easy for your customers to find the products they need, providing concise verbal descriptions, accompanied by pictures, of the features, benefits and price of your goods, and making it easy to submit payment and complete the transaction.

If your objective is to save money, you need to define precisely how the site would reduce the operating costs of your business or make your current expenditures more efficient. For example, the most effective print advertising, and virtually all radio advertising, delivers a short “sound bite” message. Your website can fill in the specific details about features and benefits, thereby improving the focus and value of your advertising.

Designing the Website

A properly designed website will deliver your message effectively to your target audience by applying technology to communicate your image and professionalism. The navigation will be designed to make it easy for your customers to find the information they need quickly. Graphic design will complement and coordinate with the style of your business and marketing collateral. Copy will be both appealing and compelling to the customer and clear and accessible to search engines.

Techniques must enhance the user’s experience without interfering with the primary objective. A properly designed e-commerce site, for example, will avoid anything that distracts the user from the purchase process and will incorporate technology to upsell, perhaps by suggesting appropriate companion products.

“Under the Hood”

There’s more to a well-designed website than meets the eye. Even a simple online brochure must incorporate standards of browser compatibility, handicapped accessibility (e.g. for speech synthesizers) and search engine friendly design. These standards become more critical when applied to a website with complex or interactive functionality. The design and efficiency of the database that provides the “engine” for your website directly influences your customer’s experience—for better or worse. A well-designed “backend” facilitates transactions and operates smoothly.

Online innovation has been growing exponentially, and a properly engineered website will be “scalable” (allowing for efficient growth), easy and less expensive to maintain, and flexible enough to meet your changing needs.

Marketing Your Site

Effective website marketing actually begins in the design phase, long before your website is completed and available online. The developers must be sensitive to the design (graphic and backend) and copy issues that contribute to successful placement in the major search engines. 

Search engines are unable to process graphics, and therefore cannot navigate a site that relies solely on graphics for navigation. Every graphical navigation system should be supplemented with text-based navigation to allow the search engines to index all of the content. Sites utilizing dynamic content (e.g. a catalog site) must be programmed to facilitate accessibility by the search engines.

Website copy must be composed to deliver your message in the appropriate tone for your target audience and must incorporate the keyword phrases your audience is likely to use when searching for your products and services. It’s a good practice to identify 10 to 15 keyword phrases (e.g. running shoes, athletic footwear, track shoes, etc.) and weave these phrases creatively through the copy. Good copy serves two purposes: it informs the reader and reinforces your search engine strategy. 

A Word about Flash

Flash intro pages may look impressive but in reality they do little to enhance your customer’s experience. They do adversely affect search engine placement. Incorporated properly into a website, however, Flash animations are a great way to engage the customer with your products or to demonstrate functionality (for a good example visit http://www.moen.com/designcenter/bath/index.cfm and click “Start Designing”).

It is important to go back to your objectives when incorporating complex animation into your website. Make sure that the animation serves the objective and does not place barriers between your customer and the goals of the site. Use animation as a promotional tool, but be careful not to distract your customer, or worse, obscure your message within a “flashy” framework.

Your Technical Marketing Advisor

Your website developer should work with you to understand your business, your communication goals and site objectives, and should provide creative technical solutions to bring your online business to life. Site development is an ongoing, iterative process which is best served by a long-lasting, solid relationship between the development agency and your business. After all, your success defines your developer’s success.

Yorktown e-Publishing, a division of the Yorktown PennySaver Media Group, is a full-service website design and hosting company which specializes in creating marketing-oriented, custom websites for area businesses. More information about Yorktown e-Publishing is available at www.yepublishing.com.