www.thewebtailor.co.uk
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www.thewebtailor.co.uk |
Who is the site for?
A website can't be all things to all people.
A site designed to massage the egos of a corporation's top executives will not make many sales. Customers' objectives are not going to be met by a site which concentrates on the great qualities of your senior staff so that the useful information about your products or services is relegated to the small print. It may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many businesses make 'about our company' or 'who we are' the central core of their site. Maybe it's a case of web designers trying to please the people who decide on the budgets or write the cheques.
A website that works has a clear target audience. Other people might visit, and they may even find the site useful or informative, but the structure and the content of the site are designed to relate to the target audience.
Start small or make a big splash?
One of the great things about a website, compared to real-world publishing, is that it is infinitely expandable.
If you've just published a book you cannot then decide that it needs an extra chapter. But you can add pages to a website very easily, even if the layout of the whole site needs to be altered to accomodate them.
So there are some real benefits to starting with a small site, and adding further content as you develop an audience for the site. If a certain feature isn't working or doesn't prove to be popular, you can take it out or replace it with something else.
That said, there is also less risk involved in launching a large website than there is, say, in launching a big advertising campaign. Nothing is cast in stone on the web, and even large sites can be developed or restructured fairly easily. Don't allow this fact to tempt you into launching a site without testing it, though: just because you can correct errors after the site is launched doesn't give you a license to release an inadequate website on your customers or clients - they won't thank you for it, and it will take a long time for you to win back their trust.
First, second or third generation?
Web sites fall into three main categories: on-line leaflets, on-line newspapers, and interactive resources.
These are sometimes referred to as three generations of website design. In the early days, organisations which wanted to be on the web simply turned their usual promotional material into web copy. This often meant taking an annual report or a marketing leaflet and rendering it for display on screen. All very well as far as it went, but it didn't exactly use the web to its full potential.
Second generation sites took their model from newspapers. Frequent (sometimes as often as daily) changes in content and some limited facility for feedback (think of a letters page in a newspaper) were common, as were moving images and even sound.
These sites still weren't making the most of the web - the internet is a new medium, not simply a newspaper without the paper. The internet has the potential to be better than anything we are used to in the real world: imagine a newspaper that knows which stories you'll want to read first, or a radio station that knows what music you like - both these models are used on the web - or a reference library where every book is indexed together, along with the memories of all the other library users, too!
Third generation sites use the technology of the internet for what it is good for, uniquely, rather than trying to mimic real-world, or so-called legacy, media types. Interactivity, discussion forums, mailing lists, the use of cookies to allow sites to remember their visitors - all these are hallmarks of a third generation site.
What level of web presence you need depends upon your objectives. It doesn't always follow that a third generation site will serve you best, although it is more likely to make your site popular with visitors.
Think about your website's objective, and decide whether that objective will be best served by high levels of interactivity, by a static, leaflet-style site or by something in between.
What can I give away?
The internet has grown on the basis of 'free stuff': free software to use it, free services and lots of free content and information. There are two powerful arguments in favour of giving something away on your site. Firstly, internet users have come to expect 'free stuff' on websites, and may be negative about your site if it doesn't meet that expectation. Secondly, unlike in the real world where your time and money are scarce, giving things away on the web really doesn't cost you anything!
Think of a software supplier. If they want to get people to switch from an established rival programme to their own new product, they may well release a free, limited edition of the software for people to try out. In the real world this costs: producing disks or CDs, posting them to people, or funding distribution of them in some other way.
On the web, there's no cost above that of establishing the website: one copy of the program sits on the web server , and is copied onto users' computers when they ask for a copy on the site. The user might be paying on-line charges for the download time, but the software company incurrs no charge at all.
This model works for a surprising large range of organisations. Consultants, advisors, even retail outlets, all have expertise which can be documented and made available on a website. Visitors to the site can get access to the information, possibly in return for supplying their e-mail address, and will remember the site as a valuable source of advice. When they need more extensive help, they return to the site... and make direct contact, possibly leading to a sale or a signed contract.
Non-profit organisations also need to think about giving something away, even if they're not after the visitor's money.
Campaigning organisations websites all have objectives (unless they have been badly thought-out), and the objective usually relates to making visitors do something (think about a particular issue, lobby their MP, buy more or less of a particular product, and so on). But most visitors to your site do not come to you in order to meet your objective - they come hoping to meet an objective of their own. If you can work out what your visitors' objectives are, and then 'give away' the solution to their objectives in return for them helping you acheive yours then you will create a website that people will return to regularly. Think of their visit to your site as a 'transaction', regardless of whether any money changes hands. If you meet your own objectives at the expense of your visitors, rather than in co-operation with them, then eventually they will go somewhere else, feeling 'robbed' or cheated by your site.
What links do I want with other sites?
Links are the lifeblood of the world wide web - without them, it wouldn't be worldwide, and it wouldn't be much of a web, either.
Far too often, though, links are an afterthought, shoved to the back of a site - a random collection of links to sites that are more or less like the one being built.
What a waste!
Before you go too far in designing your site, think about how you can use links creatively, both inside your site (using links to take people directly to relevant pages in different sections of your site without having to navigate back to the homepage on the way) and outside.
Off-site links are often the key to a useful site. Rather than just collecting a list of other sites which are like yours, think about what objectives people might have for visiting your site, and try to assemble a list of links that will help them acheive their objectives.
For instance, if you are a pressure group raising a particular issue, it is likely that many people will visit your site looking for current news stories about the issue in question.
You could carry a newsfeed from another website, or provide links to search engines that specialise in searching news items - links that take your visitors directly to a search about your issue, saving them the trouble of typing in the search terms.
Tailoring links like this also enables commercial (and semi-commercial) sites to be far more responsive to their customers.
A trade union website could have links to an on-line bookshop, picking out particular books about the labour movement to recommend. Or a florists and a pottery could have links to each other's sites - "if you're buying our lovely flowers, have a look at these beautiful vases to put them in..."
The first of these models is often used in 'affiliate programmes' where large on-line stores like amazon or bol pay commision on sales made as a result of links. The second is less structured, a case of building co-operative relationships with other websites.
One final word: don't limit the use of links to a 'links page' - if these pages get used at all, they get used when your visitor has finished with your site. Relevant links that raise the value of your site should be right where they are needed, embedded in the pages of your actual site. If you write about a related organisation then link to it, right there. Don't be scared that your visitor will run away from your site. Make clear that the link is an off-site link, and trust that your visitors will know how to get back when they need to. Don't limit their experience of the web for the sake of 'trapping' them on your site: they have the ultimate escape route, after all: they can switch off!
What schedule of upkeep and maintenance will I need?
Of the cardinal sins of website management, not budgeting for maintenance is possibly the worst.
You cannot afford to wait until after the site is finished to think about a maintenance strategy: do it now, before the design is even started.
Having a maintenance strategy in mind when you design the site means you can structure the site to fit your plans.
You should expect to devote the same level of resources (either time, money or a combination of the two) each year on maintenance as you spend initially on creating the site.
Less than this and you'll risk having a site that looks stale.
Obviously, some sites will need an even bigger commitment to upkeep - those with extensive content, or those with facilities for visitors to post content or suggestions. Interactive features like discussion forums also need someone watching them, pruning irrelevant messages, responding to questions and so on. Underestimating this workload is a recipe for people being disappointed by your site.
Once you've thought about how much upkeep will be required, think about who might do it.
Well-written websites are not difficult to maintain, and certainly discussion forums and other interactive features are better managed by the website owner rather than by a web designer or other third party.
But it may be more efficient to pay someone to update the content on a regular basis than to expect to find time to do it yourself. Paying someone else also helps to focus your mind on providing them with copy and content. If you aim to do it yourself, be strict about your schedule. You can always persuade yourself that a few more days doesn't matter and that other things are more important, but before you know it the website will be months out of date, and your visitors will be wandering off somewhere else, convinced that you're no longer using the site at all.
Should I try to sell directly off the website?
This is another of those questions to which there's no single right answer.
It is true that on-line commerce is now easier and cheaper than ever. Banks have calmed down a lot from the early days, and you no longer need a mortgage to pay the charges on a merchant account (that's the kind of bank account you need to be able to accept credit or debit cards).
Not only that, but there are now a number of websites that will handle the transactions for you if you don't have a merchant account of your own - and many of them will work in multiple currencies too!
If you're likely to have customers from the US or the far east, then this kind of arrangement can be very useful.
But don't lose sight of the fact that your website, even if you are a purely commercial concern, can contribute to the success of your enterprise even if people cannot buy your products on-line.
You may be better advised making sure the site does the basic things well - promotes your organisation, builds a relationship with your clients or customers, collates contact information for prospective clients and so on - and do your selling in a more old-fashioned way.
Should I use a web designer?
Well, what do you expect me to say to this? In general, I think you should, of course.
A few years ago, a driving school used an advert explaining why you shouldn't trust your next door neighbour to teach you to drive, and I'd advise people to treat web design with the same approach.
These days, everyone knows someone who has a son or daughter doing computer studies, who can "do websites". And for personal or family sites this is to be encouraged. The more people who are familiar with the technology, the better. But creating good, functioning websites takes more than just a basic technical ability in the use of html or javascript. And, as time goes by and interactivity increases, that becomes a decreasing part of web design.
There's no substitute for having a site created by someone who knows what works, and what doesn't. Everyone learns from mistakes, of course, even professionals. But expensive mistakes are best learned at someone else's expense not your own.
The same warnings apply to the idea of producing your own website, together with the fact that, whether you are the proprietor of a small business or the key activist in a pressure group, your time is probably better spent on other things than researching the intracacies of cascading style sheets or Common Gateway Interface scripting.
Of course, there are many CGI programmes available free on the web. And you can install them yourself. So even an interactive site can be created by an owner-operator. But be prepared to spend a lot of time tweaking the programmes to make them do exactly as you wish, and expect them to refuse to work properly at least the first few times. Installing other people's CGI programmes and scripts is easier than having to write them yourself - but only just.
There is a strong case for learning at least the basics of website production, however.
Putting everything in the hands of a web designer, and leaving them to get on with it, is a recipe for having a site over which you have no control. Many people have paid for websites which didn't work - without a basic grasp of the technologies involved, they were powerless to identify the problem, never mind put it right.
So, unless the site you are planning is exceptionally small, I would advocate you employ the services of a professional web designer. But make sure you know enough to keep track of the project, and don't let the web designer kid you that it is all some kind of black art that you are not bright enough to understand. If something is important to the success of your site, it is important that you understand, at least on a simplified level, how it works. You are, after all, the client, and if your web designer can't explain something to you, it probably means they don't understand it properly themselves.
Should I register a domain name?
In any web address, the first part of it (that usually begins www and ends with .com or .uk) is the domain. Put simply, this is a label for a particular computer (or a share of a computer) somewhere on the internet. Websites can have domain names of their own (like www.thewebtailor.co.uk) or they can be part of a larger domain (like www.unisonfree.net/pages/leicestershirehealth).
Almost certainly, you should register a domain for your website. The price of domains keeps falling, and many web hosts now offer inclusive packages. The shorter your web address, the easier it is for people to remember it, and the more relevant it is to your objective, the more likely it is that people will find it whilst searching the web.
The more difficult question is which domain you should register.
There are two issues: the 'body' of the name, and the suffix. I'll deal with the suffix first.
There is supposed to be an international system. There are suffixes for each country in the world (.uk for the UK, obviously, and .fr for France, .is for Israel, .au for Australia, and so on) and a small number of international 'top level domains' such as .com for global commercial organisations, or .org for global non-profit groups.
But so many of these have been taken that people have looked for, and found, ways to subvert the system. Many businesses have registered domains that end .net (which are supposed to only go to organisations connecting their networks to the internet) or domains that are actually registered in other countries because their suffixes appear to have meaning.
The classic in this respect is probably Tonga, whose suffix .to has spawned domains such as www.come.to and www.go.to and a whole industry of redirection services.
On one level, none of this matters, since a web address is really only a human-readable translation of a numerical address (like co-ordinates on a map) that the computers of the internet use to find each other. But it makes the internent a more confusing place to be - and it is already confusing enough.
You should try, wherever possible, to adopt a 'correct' domain name, and resist the temptation to cheat. In the long run, as more people become familiar with the rules for domains, they will try to find your site by guessing the domain, and if you've registered your UK business with a Tongan domain, they're never going to guess that.
As for the main section of the domain name, two choices stand out above all others. If you can get a domain name that matches your organisation's name, take it. If not, get something that describes your main focus of activity. The simpler and shorter, the better. If your organisation's name is complex or not widely known, then go for a domain name that describes what you do.
The combination of these two decisions makes picking domain names a difficult business. As search engines improve, and users become more familiar with the web, then the significance of domain names will lessen, and websites will be found by content rather than by name.
In the meantime, at least in the next few years, there is probably a case for registering several domain names - all variations on your organisation's name or purpose - and pointing them all at the same website. That way, whatever attempts people make to find you, their chances are increased.
Should I get web space for free, or use a commercial web host?
Some of the same arguments apply here as to the question about using a designer.
If your site is of limited significance to your organisation, then you can get by using free space - most email suppliers offer 5Mb or 10Mb of free space with each email account. But these often come with limitations.
Free web space often cannot have a domain name pointed at it, unless you use a third party redirection service (which, in turn, slows down your visitors' experience of the site, and adds one more potential break in the connection from you to your visitor). And most free web hosts refuse to allow you anything other than static web pages on their server.
Since you're not paying them for technical support, it is hard to argue with these restrictions. But for most serious websites, either for business or for organisations, they are too limiting.
The good news is that a good quality web host is not necessarily expensive. The trick is in working out in advance which facilities and features you will need, and finding a host that will give you the things you need without charging you extra for things you don't intend to use.
The better web hosting companies have very flexible contracts to make this a real possibility. So shop around. Or ask someone who knows the market to do it for you.
Any comments?
These pages are intended to be informative and helpful. I would like to know if you've found them helpful, or if you think they can be improved. Get in touch if you have comments or suggestions.
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