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Many organizations and businesses would like to have a web site but don’t
know where to start. Before you hire a designer for your site, think about
these issues:
Will your site be informational, similar to a brochure? An e-commerce
site for selling products or services over the web through a secure connection?
An interactive site where visitors can connect with each other or play
games?
Knowing the scope of your site determines your need for server space,
your budget for development, and whether you need a single designer or
a development team consisting of designers, programmers, database specialists,
and so on. In general, the simpler the site, the lower it will cost to
produce and maintain. However, simpler sites also tend to generate less
business.
This will give you an idea of what kind of work you need to do up-front
and what you can contract for. Many businesses shoot their own photography
with a digital camera, for instance, while others hire professional photographers.
Some businesses can use copy from existing brochures, while others will
need copy written especially for the site. Be sure to include your needs
for additional services when you’re interviewing
designers.
A domain name is the address visitors type in to their web browser to
reach your site (also called a URL). It makes it easy for people to find
you. Examples of domain names are Yahoo.com and WhiteHouse.gov.
If you want to present yourself in a professional context, a domain name
is essential. Costs are very reasonable (usually around $15/year). Choose
a name that is memorable and easy to spell if possible.
Your web site will reside on a server hosted by an Internet Service Provider
(ISP). A separate contract with the ISP is required to obtain web hosting.
Bloomington ISPs include HoosierNet,
BlueMarble, Kiva,
and others. National ISPs include HostMySite,
Catalog.com, and
many more. Your web designer can research and recommend ISPs based on
your needs.
Your ISP should have the type of server you need for your site (Microsoft,
Apache, etc), offer a variety of hosting plans, and provide both online
and phone support. Look for ISPs with established reputations, not just
the ones with the lowest price.
Designing for the Web has a number of special technical considerations:
The web is a completely plastic medium. The same page will look significantly
different depending on whether the viewer is using a PC or a Mac, depending
on which browser the viewer is using (Internet Explorer, Netscape, AOL,
etc), and even what version of the browser the viewer has.
Consequently, don’t expect your site to look exactly the same on
different computers. A good web designer checks sites on a variety of
machines in order to catch glaring errors, but current technology does
not allow total control over the page through HTML.
The software program Flash creates sites which are completely self-contained,
meaning they will display exactly the same on all browsers. However, Flash
sites require a special plug-in to view, tend to take a long time to download,
and are not search-engine friendly. For these reasons, unless you have
special needs, Flash is probably not appropriate for your site.
Unlike print, there are only 216
web-safe colors. This means that any color outside the approved
palette runs the risk of dithering (looking strangely like a bunch of
“dots”) or otherwise displaying incorrectly. However, if your
audience is likely to have higher-end or recent model computers, your
site can probably use a web-smart
palette. This palette offers more color options, though there are
still far fewer than in print.
Regardless of which palette you use, color displays differently on every
monitor. There is no way to get consistent color across the web. Even
if we were able to have all monitors display the correct hues, people
can still make individual adjustments of brightness and contrast which
affect color. Color on the web is only approximate. Therefore, do not
expect your web site to be able to display reproduction-quality color.
When a person enters a URL in a browser to visit your site, the browser
has to find the server which stores your site’s files and then download
those files to the viewer’s machine. All that takes time. On average,
viewers will wait eight seconds for a web page to display in their browser.
Therefore you’ll want your site to load as quickly as possible.
The single biggest contributor to long download times is images. Download
time is affected by the number of images, their size, and even the number
of colors in them. Your web designer can help optimize imagery for your
site, but it’s important to keep in mind that you may need to sacrifice
some images or rearrange the site in order to speed up the download time.
The number one concern for most people with web sites is “How do
I get it to rank high in search engines?” The answer is not very
simple, unfortunately. There are thousands of search engines and each
uses different criteria for ranking pages. Some rely on robots
(automated programs) to analyze and rank sites, while others use people
to visit every site and categorize it. Some will only rank sites which
pay for the privilege.
Most search engines rely on keywords for rankings. Keywords are
simply the terms a searcher uses to find a site. For instance, to find
a hotel in Indianapolis, a visitor might type “accommodations, Indianapolis”
into a search engine. That engine would look through its database for
sites where those words recur and return results based on that. Different
search engines look in different areas of the Web page for keywords.
When devising copy for your site, start with the keywords. Think about
what words a potential visitor would use to find a site like yours when
using a search engine. Then include those words in your copy. (See our
Web Smarts: Search Engine Strategies resource page
for help on keywords.)
For instance, in the example above, you might have an opening sentence
saying, “Offering elegant hotel accommodations in Indianapolis since
1873.” That uses hotel, accommodations, and Indianapolis
in the very first sentence, which will help you rank higher in some engines.
The other main way search engines determine site rankings is through
what Google calls PageRank. This is a measure of what sites are
linked to yours. The more high-quality, relevant links you have pointing
back to your site, the higher your site will rank in search engines. Therefore,
any web site promotion plan should include a linking strategy. It’s
the most frequently overlooked part of a Web promotion campaign.
Depending on your market, it may be necessary to pay in order to achieve
top rankings in search engines. This is through what are called pay-per-click
(PPC) programs. In PPC programs, you bid on certain keywords. When a searcher
enters those keywords into a search engine, your site is listed as a sponsored
or featured link. When—and only when—the visitor
clicks on the link to your site, you pay the PPC provider.
PPC is a highly effective way of driving targeted traffic to your site.
See our Web Smarts: Driving Traffic to Your Site
resource page for more information on PPC.
Web sites are very different from traditional print advertising because
of their interactivity and their ability to offer viewers multiple avenues
of exploration. Viewers expect to have control over navigation and to
be rewarded for visiting your site.
To create a site with loyal return visitors, make it sticky—a
place viewers want to return to frequently. Design the site with the viewer’s
interests as a top priority (don’t just talk about how great you
are). Put the most compelling information (from the visitor’s point
of view) on the home page. Offer free information or downloads which viewers
can share with their colleagues or friends. Set up e-newsletters to keep
in touch with your visitors and inform them of updates or specials on
your site. Offer interactive games or quizzes. Offer chat rooms where
visitors can talk with each other.
There are a whole variety of means by which you can build brand loyalty
and increase your site’s stickiness. The best method, however, is
to think about what your visitors need and how you can most effectively
deliver it to them.
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