Be Prepared

Your web site is going to be accessible to the entire World Wide Web community, which is to say tens of millions of people.

Even if only 100 people a week actually visit your online site, that still amounts to over 5000 people a year. So it is worth your while to give serious consideration to what your web site is going to accomplish for you. Imagine someone opening a storefront but not giving any thought to how the exterior looks, or how the interior will be laid out, or whether the customers can find what they are looking for, or if the sales people know the answers to the customers' questions. That is a business that would be doomed.

If you are going to be on the WWW, being seen by thousands of visitors every year, then your success will in large part depend on how much attention you give in advance to the overall purpose of your site. That being the case, any business or organization wanting to use online technology most effectively would be well served to give some consideration to all of the following questions: 1. What are the principal goals of your web site? Do you have both short term and long term goals? For example, do you want to sell directly to your web site visitors? Or refer them to other outlets? Do you want to inform them, or are you looking to get information from your visitors?

2. Do you see your company as having a particular "identification" in the minds of your customers? For example, the managers of IBM might see Big Blue as "solid"; at Apple, it might be "innovative"; at Pepsi, maybe "hip"; at AT&T, "dependable"; Land Rover, "adventurous"... etc.

3. Who is your primary target audience? Is there a secondary audience?

4. What is the key message you want visitors to take away from your site? Whatever you decide here will help set the tone for the look and the content of your entire web site.

5. How will your web site help support your current marketing plan? 6. How will you promote your web site? It won't be enough to just "let people find you." For your web site to be successful, you'll have to carefully integrate it into every aspect of your advertising and communications.

7. Do your competitors have web sites? Have you visited any of them? What is it that most impressed you about these sites? What was weakest about them? Take notes!

8. Have you gathered and prioritized the content that will make up the body of your site? On the web, it is better to be concise than it is to be verbose, and often you'll find that "less is more," so at the top levels of the site only say what you need to say to be informative. You should place longer and more detailed text deeper in the site's navigational structure.

Who on your staff will be the primary contact person regarding web site decisions? Does this individual have the final authority to make content changes? Suppose these changes result in increased costs? Who else in your group will be involved with providing input? What is their authority?

10. Will anyone outside your organization be providing content?
For example, would an independent photographer be commissioned for pictures, a graphics artist for images, or a writer for copy?

11. How often do you anticipate making content changes/updates to your site? Who will make these changes after the site is designed and uploaded? If you do not have a staff person to handle this, we are available on an "as needed" basis to help you with ongoing site maintenance and revision.

12. Will your site (or parts thereof) be used for internal company communications (and thus be closed to outside visitors)?
For example, will you be posting job opportunities, policy changes, or employee newsletters?

13. Do you have a sense of what the likely technological capabilities of your audience may be? Are they comfortable with computers and using the Internet? Would they be using up-to-date browsers and software?

14. How will you measure the success of your web site? Be realistic. Just as with anything else in the business world, you'll get out of your web site what you put into it. The WWW is a proven powerful business tool, but is not likely to be the goose that just keeps on laying the golden eggs. Over time, the web should MAKE you money, and it should SAVE you money. You can MAKE money with direct online sales, additional customer contacts for your sales people, an increase of customer traffic at your real world storefront, requests for brochures that lead to mail orders, etc. And the web can SAVE you money by offering a lot of information online that your staff now has to provide over the telephone.
For example, if your customers now use your toll free phone number to ask you questions that could easily be answered at your web site with an FAQ, then that change alone will be a considerable savings over time.

15. Finally, have you and your top staff people reached a consensus on the scope and direction of your site?

As with any important business or organizational project, you want everyone on board with the same overall perspective and with realistic expectations of what your web site will provide. Once the team is motivated and focused, the design of your site will naturally follow as an extension of the group vision. MATERIALS TO GATHER IN ADVANCE:

Any brochures and / or catalogs you have published over the years;
Press releases that you have issued, and stories about you in newspapers or magazines;

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