The Next Generation Website Model

Narrowcast Communication-On-Demand Websites

The next generation of websites will have a vastly different way of communicating information to their visitors. Websites will evolve into true communication platforms that will take advantage of the Web's multimedia capabilities and the Internet's broadband penetration.

The new website model will have the look, feel, and sound of your very own narrow-cast communication channel complete with audio and video programming and on-site personalities that will present and guide audiences through the maze of content. But unlike television, this humanized Web-experience will allow site visitors to make their own programming choices; audiences will be able to experience the content they want, when they want and in the format of their choice: audio and video, or text and graphics.

Why Websites Will Become Multimedia Communication Channels

1. There are millíons of websites on the Internet representing millíons of small and medium size companies with an enormous aggregate ínvestment, and the vast majority of these websites are underperforming in large part because they have not taken advantage of the Web's multimedia communication capability and the penetration of broadband transmission.

2. Business owners want to see better results but they are being stymied in part by their own lack of vision and unrealistic expectations, but more importantly by a conventional wisdom promoted by particular Industry interests that handicap website owners' ability to capitalize on the Web's multimedia communication capability and its democratizing economic character.

3. Up until recently, major search engines have stifled Web-based marketing communication by failing to develop appropriate measures with which to properly index Web-based multimedia presentations. With the popularity of Google Video, YouTube, and the advent of Google Video Ads, the search engines will develop the technological means to better index multimedia content.

4. Progress can only be halted in the short term. Multimedia communication technology and the Web's ability to accommodate it have outpaced the Web's gatekeepers. The limitations imposed by SEO strategists on delivering content cannot stop the demand for a more humanized Web-communication experience that provides material that is informative, meaningful, and memorable.

5. As successful as some companies maybe with their PPC (pay per click) programs, the vast majority of small and medium size businesses are not. It is impossible for every business that is prepared to pay for placement or for SEO-expertise to be number one or even on the first page in any particular search category. There are just too many companies in similar businesses, with similar objectives to all rank on the first page of search results. As a consequence businesses will begin to focus on delivering more effective content to truly interested Web-visitors who take the time to find you on the Web or who respond to your direct marketing efforts. More emphasis will be placed on how long visitors stay on a site, and what visitors learn and retain from that site rather than spending monëy on attracting just more random traffïc.

6. With articles and books being written about the Web's natural ability to access niche markets ('The Long Tail' by Chris Anderson), businesses will soon realize that delivering meaningful content to interested audiences takes precedence over attracting volumes of uninterested traffïc. High volumes of traffïc may be the goal of sites that make their monëy by delivering traffïc to advertisers, but if you have your own product or service to sell, it's about the quality of traffïc not the volume.

7. Human beings are hardwired to listen, learn and retain information based on how the brain receives information. People just don't like reading information on computer screens. The linear narrative (storytelling) delivered by the sound of a human voice, enhanced by the moving image of a real person is how information is most effectively transmitted. It's about communicating the message and how best to deliver the content.

8. The broadcast advertising model is not relevant to the narrowcast nature of the Web. Even websites that attract thousands of simultaneous visitors, still speak to one visitor at a time, and each of these visitors can experience your content in the order and at the time they choose. The Web audience for your offering wants content, and your Web marketing and communication techniques need to be adjusted to deliver your message as content and not merely as advertising.

9. The Web's hyperlinked nature is a two-edged sword. As quickly as people can be directed to your site by high search engine ranking or reciprocal links, they can also leave at hyper-speed when they are frustrated by reams of text, outbound links, and distracting advertisements. People want content delivered in familiar, easily understandable, and digestible formats - audio and video.

10. Advertising as we know it is dead. Two thirds of television audiences completely ignore or disengage from television ads, and website audiences learn quickly where the ads are on a website and then avoid them. If you what to make your point, get your message across, and attract interest in what you do, you have to provide quality content that is entertaining, compelling, and above all memorable.

The Narrowcast Communication-On-Demand Website

The narrowcast communication-on-demand website model will deliver information formatted in audio and video programs. Text and static pictures will be provided for those who need to print hardcopy information for reference purposes.

This model offers businesses the ability to take advantage of the Web's full communication capabilities and the hardwired nature of people to respond to human-based presentations that enhance attraction, comprehension, and retention of information.

If you want to improve your bottom line using the Web, you have to start thinking differently. The same old marketing and sales models of the past are not going to work on the new multimedia Web. Web-audiences will demand more than a sales pitch or product specification sheet.

How to Convert a Static Website into a Multimedia Website

Traditionally websites are divided into sections that provide information on the company, the products and/or services, clients, help resources, company news and PR initiatives, and contact information.

These traditional website elements have to be reformatted into more effect program-style presentations using video interviews, expert opinion, and how to sessions, as while as audio FAQs, knowledge bases, and product or service descriptions. Testimonials, success stories and corporate histories can be turned into entertaining and compelling video documentaries that establish brand personality and build confidence.

The Web has evolved from its early days into a fully functioning multimedia communication environment. If you've followed all the rules and listened to all the conventional wisdom, and you're still not getting what you want out of your website, maybe it's time you tried a different approach.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a Thornhill, Ontario based website design firm that specializes in delivering their North American clients' marketing messages using the latest audio, video, and interactive Flash presentation techniques to create compelling, informative and memorable Web-experiences that enhance brand personality and increase sales and profíts. Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com, SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Launching your website, the SEO way

Do you have a brand new site? How long will you have to wait before it appears on search engines? The truth is, that it could be several months. If you do nothing, it could be years. We offer a couple of suggestions for getting you started on launch day.

One important thing I should mention is that I assume you have a website that is SEO friendly. If it is completely designed in flash, it is not. If it contains frames, it is not. If it is made up of images, it is not. This will make things a lot harder. I have seen some websites that are beautifully designed in flash or contained within frames that have been invisible on search engines. Even after 3 years, their sites did not appear anywhere. The content of this article actually assumes that you have appropriately designed your website. If not, then I recommend hiring a company to perform an seo assessment or audit to increase your potential.

One of the main things you need is to start building a network of incoming links. We'll tackle relevancy later on but for now, let's focus on ways for getting sites to link to you.

Incoming Links: (external links)
Significant links are those who have a Page Rank in excess of 3/10 (as determined by the popularity of a website). Yahoo.com, for example, has a Page Rank of 10/10, which is very valuable. Consider getting additional links to your site by submitting to directories that have a high page rank like Yahoo! (Page Rank - 10), Superpages.com (Page Rank - 8) or Dmoz.org (Page Rank -9) to take advantage of valuable incoming links. Some of these are free, others charge a nominal fee while Yahoo! charges $299 for submission to their directory. A better place to start is http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php where you can find a list of directories, paid and free, that could be valuable to you.

Optimized Press Releases:
When launching your website, it's a great idea to prepare a press release to let people know. If you're not planning on doing a full press release, we encourage you to consider an optimized press release online. Often more valuable than regular press releases, those that have been optimized can really boost your visibility online. In addition to the increased visibility, we like to select those services that offer the ability to set anchored links. One of these is PRWebdirect.com. Not only is it important to choose your keywords appropriately, but to set your anchored links to offer greatest value to both the user and your website. Others include:

www.prleap.com
www.i-newswire.com
www.webwire.com
www.pressbox.co.uk
www.24-7pressrelease.com
www.clickpress.com
www.przoom.com
www.pr.com
www.marketwire.com

Some of these are free, others will charge a small submission fee. Another that we have had great success with is www.arrivenet.com. The key is first of all to write the press release, secondly to set the anchored links and the final one is to add tags below the article.

Buy Text Links:
While you should be careful not to overdo this, there are some benefits at least initially, that you could gain from purchasing text links. One of the more predominant ones is http://www.text-link-ads.com/.

Link Exchange:
Another good way to generate links is to tap into your existing network. You may want to consider having a links page set up. While you are probably only offering a 0/10 link exchange, many of your partners would not mind the additional exposure on another site.

Articles:
Positioning yourselves as the experts is the field is not only valuable for your brand but it can also garner some good incoming links. Writing an article on "Selecting a Widget" or "Widget Solutions: Renting vs Buying" can be very useful for generating online visibility. These articles can then get picked up through a variety of sources but should be submitted to as many content hubs as possible. Some of the better ones are:

www.goarticles.com
www.isnare.com
www.submityourarticle.com
www.articlecity.com
www.exchangenet.com
www.article-directory.com
www.freezinesite.com

In addition, there are article distribution services like isnare.com plus writing articles on about.com.

Blog/Forum Participation:
One method that can be more time-consuming is to participate in user forums and user blogs. Essentially there are a lot of relevant sites out there to encourage user participation. When adding a post or responding to one, make an attempt to place your signature with a link to your website, preferably using some of your top keywords.

Pay-per-Click, Paid Inclusion:
A good way to kick-start your new site and launch your online marketing campaign is to establish an online advertising program. Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are two of the first places that should be considered.

Google Sitemap:
Google offers an xml generated sitemap tool that let's GoogleBot (Google's spider/crawler) know when your content is updated or pages have been added. Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemap and follow the instructions for creating one.

These are just a handful of ideas to get you started. It can be a time consuming prospect but can also be very valuable. You already know that people are out there looking for you or a company like you. Hopefully they don't find a company like you first.

About the Author: Paul Fleming is a founding principal at Dinkum Interactive, a search marketing company based out of Philadelphia. They offer genuine search and new media marketing services to small and medium businesses.

Thou Shalt Obey Web Design Rules

"What makes a good web page?"

People ask me this all the time, though they often encounter difficulty boiling the question down to so few words.

You, like any serious website operator, want to know how to create and maintain the best possible website that nets you the most sales and subscribers.

The following "commandments" represent the ideals towards which every new or existing website should aspire.

1. Thou Shalt Have Purpose - Clearly define the site's purpose and ensure all content, graphics, and text tightly focus on that purpose.

Discard all extraneous or distracting material and regularly revisit your site to ensure all changes fit with the site's primary purpose.

2. Thou Shalt Be Lightweight - Use only fast-loading graphics and other elements.

If you must use large graphics use thumbnails and image slicing to diminish the size of every file to lessen load times.

Though the majority of surfers now carry high-speed access, avoid any content that requires the user to download special, non-standard "plug-ins" to view your content.

3. Thou Shalt Load Fast - Each and every entry page on your site should weigh in under 50-100KB total, including graphics and navigation.

Interior pages can run larger, but the "front doors" to your site should not make surfers wait long to start interacting with the site.

4. Thou Shalt Not Use False Code - You should only use html or asp to create your web pages.

Never use java, xml, dhtml or other forms of code that require a surfer to keep their browser set up "correctly" to accommodate your page.

Unless you sell to "geeks" and "techno-nerds," this will only lose you visitors and won't make you any friends.

5. Thou Shalt Respect the Search Engines - If you want search engine traffic use whole web pages that don't incorporate frames or large amounts of code unrelated to your content.

Also, if you want search traffic, actively cultivate linking relationships with related sites and operate a blog.

6. Love Thy Surfers and Visitors - Design for "last year's" technology so surfers using older computers and slower connections can download your content and use your site quickly and easily.

Designing for the "bleeding edge" will only cut into your own profits.

7. Thou Shalt Not Annoy - Use only stationary text and graphical layout elements.

No Scrolling text, marquees, or large Flash animations of any kind, including those annoying, full-page Flash home pages that say "Skip Intro."

This "eye candy" rarely adds to a site's main purpose and often causes your visitors to miss something or leave in frustration.

8. Thou Shalt Not Scroll Sideways - Design your pages so they never force a visitor to scroll left or right no matter what the resolution settings on their monitor.

Sites that read "best viewed at 1024 x 768" really say "look at it my way because I don't care about your preferences or limitations."

9. Thou Shalt Stay Consistent - Include a standard navigational structure on every page.

Though it may mean a serious challenge for the designer, users should only need to click once to find every major section of a site.

This includes using standard link colors in all text links. Blue: hyperlink; Purple: visited hyperlink; Red: active hyperlink.

10. Thou Shalt Cultivate Subscribers - Nothing floods your website with targeted traffic like sending an email message to your loyal subscriber base.

Whether for a new product launch, affiliate product endorsement, or holiday sale, that list represents your most valuable online business asset.

Make sure your website actively cultivates subscribers by giving them multiple opportunities to sign up and a compelling reason or incentive to do so.

Then, make it worth their while to pay attention to you on a regular basis.

Whether you're a home-based business owner or CEO of a billion-dollar e-business empire, these "commandments" will guide you to eternal ecommerce happiness and prosperity.

Landing Page Usability : More Than Just The Curiosity Factor

A landing page is the page that visitors first see after becoming curious enough to clíck on a link to your site. The link may be found on search engine results pages, within a specifically targetëd email, on the site's navigation toolbar or within another website.

In many cases, these are links you pay for. The organic results delivered by SERPs are free, but, unless your site appears on the first two pages, it's unlikely that visitors will connect.

In many cases, the landing page is the site's home page - but not always, even within SERPs. Landing pages can appear anywhere within a web site.

Paid Links Demand ROI

If your landing page receives prominent display within search engine results pages, congratulations. Upward of 50% of visitor traffíc found that landing page through an SE query. However, only 20 to 25 sites can appear on page one of Google's SERPs. What about the other 10,000 links Google delivers to its users?

Often, smaller sites employ paid links to drive site traffíc. Google Adwords, for example, is a PPC (pay per clíck) means of building business. The important point is this: PPC programs have to more than pay for themselves in order for your site to remain a viable business.

Any form of paid linkage to one of your landing pages must deliver a nice ROI. And to do that, you need a fully-usable, engaging landing page. Otherwise, visitors won't stick around long enough to read about your low prices and free shipping.

The Purpose of the Landing Page

While all site pages have a purpose (at least on well-designed sites) a landing page typically has a special or singular purpose: to sell a particular item, to announce a product sale, to entice visitors to opt in, complete a questionnaire or perform some other MDA (most desired action).

First determine the MDA the landing page addresses. Then, design everything - from headlines and text to graphics and pictures - to support the completion of the MDA.

Try to keep to one MDA per landing page. Again, the landing page has a specific purpose. Extraneous information, slow-loading videos and a confusing call to action are distractions, along with affilíate links, text links and unnecessary animations. All distract the attention of the viewer from your MDA.

Landing Page Design Principles

1. Create a headline that accomplishes the following:

• tells the visitors that they're on the right page;
• clearly states the purpose of the landing page - the MDA;
• engages the visitor, piques interest, encourages the reader to continue.

The headline should be a grabber and appear "above the fold" - the top of your home page. That's the most valuable real estate on your site.

2. Use short blocks of text and single sentences surrounded by negative space (white). Visitors tend to scan rather than read the entire page, even if the text is pure poetry.

3. And because readers scan instead of read site text, use lots of headers, sub-heads and bullet lists.

4. The first sentence of each block of text should provide the critical information you want to impart, again because visitors scan, often reading just the first sentence of a paragraph or block of text.

5. Employ an unambiguous call to action. "Order Now!" "Call now before you forget!" Leave no doubt what action is expected of the visitor. Calls for action can appear throughout the landing page text and a call to action should be the last thing visitors read.

6. Choose a type font that's easy on the eyes. Avoid scrípt fonts and fonts with lots of curly-Qs.

7. If the landing page sells one or more products, provide visitors with pictures of the products.

8. Prices, including shipping and handling costs, should appear below the fold. But they should definitely appear.

Creating a Prominent Landing Page

If your landing page is also the home page, by definition it has prominence to visitors and to search engine spiders. However, if your landing page or pages are within the site, it's important to make sure search engine spiders recognize the importance of this page within the site - its prominence.

Spiders use a number of criteria to determine a particular page's prominence within the context of the entire site. Location is one criterion - the more clicks away from the home page, the less prominent - at least to the limited capabilities of current search engines.

Text is another criterion used to assess prominence. Keywords, keyword density and an automated comparison of keywords in the text against keywords in various HTML tags is another indicator of a page's prominence.

Finally, the number of links pointing to a particular page is an important factor in assessing page prominence. The more links connecting other pages to your landing page, the more prominent it will be to search engines when your site is indexed. This is especially important when landing page product offerings differ significantly from other products sold on the site. Search engines employ a mathematical taxonomy to classify each site within a particular category. So, if you market educational toys but introduce a landing page offering children's books, it's important for search engines to reevaluate the site's taxonomy and to expand the site's classification to include 'sellers of children's books'. One way to do this is to create links within the site all pointing to the landing page.

Landing pages are useful as motivators, as site directories, information sources and for many other valuable purposes. However, the development of an effective landing page takes careful thought and an understanding of what drives both humans and search engine spiders.

Generate increased site traffíc and improve your conversion rate with a well-designed, well-written, well-placed and well-connected landing page on your site.

About The Author
Frederick Townes is the owner of W3 EDGE Web Design. W3 EDGE specializes in custom business web design and development, providing bleeding edge solutions to fit needs from small static sites to large dynamic sites requiring a fully customized CMS system. Contact them today to find out how W3 EDGE can help you make the most of your online presence.

Web Content Is Vital To Having an Effective Web Site.

An appealing design will pull people into your web site, but it's the content that will make them stick and become buyers. In other words: Pictures tell, but words sell. That's why your content is one of the most important elements of your web site.

Outlining a clear strategy for your content is the initial step to creating effective content for your web site. First, identify what you want to accomplish, what information it will include and how the content will be organized.

Your site should provide information your prospects need to know to buy from you plus information you want them to know that will convince them to buy from you. Need-to-know-type content for potential customers might include information about your company, products/services, customers and testimonials.

Information that you want them to know might include work samples, frequently asked questions, press releases, reports, articles and other material that can educate them about your business. And don't forget to include a clear and effective marketing message that will convert visitors into buyers. After all, isn't that the primary reason for having a web site?

While your content must cater to site visitors, it should also be strategically developed for the best performance with search engines. So be sure to include the right keywords in your regular text, meta tags, headings, etc. The goal is to make your content appealing to site visitors and search engines. If you optimize your content effectively, you can keep a steady stream of free traffic flowing to your web site.

Web Content Writing Tips

One of the most important things to remember when writing content is this: Keep it simple and clear. Most people find it 30 times harder to read text on a computer screen than on paper. Also, site visitors tend to skim over web content, focusing on headlines, bold text and links. So be sure to format your web content so the information is easy for people to find, read and understand.

Here are seven smart ways to create effective Web content:

1. Be concise.
Cut out extra words in sentences, get to the point and express what you need to say quickly.

2. Be conversational.
Don't use complicated words or business language no one outside your industry will understand. Just write the way you talk, so your copy will convey a friendly, comfortable and confident tone.

3. Write in small chunks.
Group ideas by topics and present them in small, manageable chunks of information. Keep your sentences as short as possible and vary the lengths so you hold readers' interest. Then add descriptive, bold headings that will make the content easier to scan.

4. Give good information.
Most people go online to find information about their hobbies, products or other interests. Don't waste their time by placing useless, self-serving content on your site. Make sure you provide information that's not only interesting, but also educational and enriching. (In fact, many search engines won't consider listing sites into their databases if they lack useful information.)

5. Use descriptive links.
Go beyond the typical "click here" link on your Web pages. Try something like: "Take our demo," "Get a sample," or "Order now!" Not only is this more engaging, but it can enhance your performance with search engines.

6. Link to complementary Web sites.
Include links to Web sites that offer supplementary (not competing) information. This will not only benefit your site visitors, but it also can boost your search engine ranking.

7. Keep your content fresh.
Keep the information on your site interesting and updated so visitors will have a reason to come back.

About the Author: Copyright 2006, Kate Smalley, Connecticut Secretary, http://www.connecticutsecretary.com, kms@connecticutsecretary.com. Transcription Services and Freelance Secretarial Support Services.

What is AJAX programming?

Remember when the web consisted of nothing more than a few static web sites coded exclusively with HTML? Life was simple back then. Back in 1996, a website could be created in a few minutes by inserting the content into a basic HTML template, and adding some graphics for style. Now, the internet is populated with web sites that are more complex. Modern web sites use anywhere from two to sometimes twenty different programming languages, specifications and scripts. Some of the code runs on the front end, some runs on the back end, and some runs somewhere in between.

We have the wireless revolution to thank for making web programming so arduous. Most wireless devices, such as cell phones, palm tops, laptops, and even computer screens in automobiles, now come equipped with access to the internet and email. These gadgets have web browsers and platforms that are very different from what is installed on a traditional desktop PC. Wireless browsers are often not compatible with many elements of the HTML programming language. Web programming had to evolve to suit the needs of those that surf the net on wireless computers.

As a result, a deluge of new languages and systems for designing websites were introduced. These new innovations include XML, XHTML, XSL, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, DOM, and many others. Of these, XML was probably the most important, because it enabled web designers to define data without forcing web browsers to display it a certain way. XML files were simple text files that could be interpreted by any web browser, unlike HTML. So, you ask, what is AJAX and how is it connected to this discussion?

Well, AJAX is a confluence of all these different programming specifications. AJAX itself is not a language; it is a technique that makes use of all these different components. Also, AJAX web sites can interact with the user by responding to input and changing certain parts of a web page without reloading the entire page.

AJAX makes use of several components. One component is called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is an easy way to create web sites by specifying certain intricacies and style preferences for the page layout as part of a separate file that can then be imported into any HTML document by simple referring to the CSS File. The second part is XHTML, which is a more versatile version of HTML that is compatible with XML files. AJAX also uses the Document Object Model (DOM), which is a standard set of objects that can be used to modify web documents. The other components are scripting languages such as JavaScript and VBScript, and it also uses XML, which we have already described.

Microsoft is credited with the inspiration for AJAX when in 1998 they developed something called remote scripting to make web pages more interactive. Later on, remote scripting was taken to newer heights by other talented programmers, and eventually, AJAX was the result.

Some of the advantages of it are that it can be used to create sites that are extremely interactive, and it loads very quickly and occupies very little bandwidth. The drawbacks are that it can sometimes inhibit the use of the back button on the web browser, and sometimes the code has a problem initiating the response that it has been programmed to produce.

If you design web sites for a living, you should probably learn how to implement all of the languages described here to make your sites more interactive. If you have never studied or used XML, XHTML, JavaScript, or VBScript, you should enroll in some courses at a local computer programming institute. The use of these languages is growing as more people are connecting to the internet with wireless computers that require more flexible languages to display web sites properly across all platforms and browsers.

Author: Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.

How To Analyze Your Website

How good is your website? Does it do its job? Is it effective? These are all good questíons that every business owner and marketing manager needs to ask him or herself. The website has become an essential tool for business. We all know we have to have a website, but are we using this venue to its greatest advantage?

Most people responsible for their company's websites have stats packages and counters to tell them how many hits, how many unique visitors, where they are coming from, what their IP addresses are, what browser they're using, and of course the all important monitor resolution. So what! Who cares? The real question is do we have an effective website?

Now if you have a transactional website, commonly referred to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of salës you are generating from your site, which is important, but do you really know how effective your site is? How many orders are you losing because of bad layout, awkward design, confusing navigation, and poor copy? How many potential clients have you chased away because you haven't put a telephone number on your site and an accessible real-person that can answer questíons?

A website is your business' public face. Big businesses can look like mom and pop operations and mom and pop operations can look like General Motors. The design of your website should not be taken lightly, its budget should not be an afterthought, and the designer you hire should be someone who understands more than code. Your Web-designer should be a multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can counsel you how best to deliver your marketing message, and someone who can go beyond technical issues.

You can spend a lot of monëy and have someone analyze your site for you, but are you really going to believe him, are you really going to act on their recommendations? You can't sell somebody something they really don't want - that may sound obvious, but believe me, salës people do it everyday. If you don't think you need a new website, you aren't going to spend the monëy to have one built. So the best way to tell if you need one is to analyze the one you already have, yourself.

Below is a set questíons you can ask yourself. If you answer them honestly, you'll know whether you need a new site or not. After you've gone through the process, ask some colleagues to do the same. See if your answers compare.

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?

Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What is your website's purpose?

a. Transactional sales-oriented site
b. Customer service support site
c. How to instructional site
d. Product or service demonstration site
e. Lead generation site
f. Marketing, branding, positioning site
g. Promotional campaign site
h. Viral or buzz creation site

2. Is Your Website Focused?

Too many businesses both large and small use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything you do, everything you've done, and everything you ever thought of doing. This won't work. Customers are like children; they want clarity, direction, and unequivocal answers. Your website should be focused on a singular function. URLs are cheap, there is no reason you can't have different websites for every major thing you do, or every marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?

Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too deep to find what you're looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool. If your website doesn't work properly, the only thing you're communicating is incompetence. How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website's Construction Balance Competing Concerns?

Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, client-side, server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, transaction efficiency all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffíc numbers? Did you start with an IT solution like a database and build your site around a poorly conceived information delivery system. Does your website's design reflect your sites' defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not salës. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

6. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of their business' marketing initiatives. Everything your company does should reflect an over-riding ethos, point-of-view, and personality. If your marketing collaterals don't match your website presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

7. Is content king on your website?

I once had a fairly large manufacturing client ask me to build a website based on a business card and ten 8x10 glossies of discontinued merchandise. This fellow was so paranoid that his competitors would see what he was doing that he hid his products from his customers. This business is now bankrupt. We've all heard the saying 'content is king'. Is content king on your website? Does your website adequately display and explain what you do, what products you sell, and what services you provide? Are there examples of your work? Are there testimonials from your customers? Have you provided information on how to order, how to use, and how to resolve problems? Is content really king on your website?

8. Is your website an experience?

You watch television, you listen to the radio, you read a magazine, but you experience a website. Unlike other marketing vehicles, websites provide you the opportuníty to deliver your marketing message with the full complement of multimedia tools. Websites can stimulate all the senses, sight, sound, and interactive touch in order to communicate and connect with your audience. Websites are not brochures. Visitors shouldn't just see your website, they should experience it. Is your website an experience?

9. Does your website have a distinctive look?

The notion of the flaming animated logo has become a clich� for bad design and style over substance, but that does not mean your website should be aesthetically boring and visually dreary. Your site should display clarity of vision; it should provide functional page layout; its use of colors, type, and static and kinetic visuals should be distinctive and purposeful. Your website should provide a defining "Look" that enhances your business personality. Does your website display a distinctive look that represents your business personality?

10. Do you list appropriate contact information on your website?

I remember going to a meeting with a client who was in the construction business. The Vice President of the company was hopping mad. He demanded his email address be taken off the site immediately. He wasn't going to waste any more time dealing with client emails and inquiries. Websites are all about connecting you to your clients, not hiding from them. If you think you can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ and Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think again. Does your website have adequate contact information? Do you list appropriate email addresses and telephone numbers for the people responsible for various aspects of your business?

There you have it. Ten questíons that when answered honestly will tell you whether or not you have a website that works and whether or not you need to rebuild.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a Thornhill, Ontario based website design firm that specializes in delivering their North American clients' marketing messages using the latest audio, video, and interactive Flash presentation techniques to create compelling, informative and memorable Web-experiences that enhance brand personality and increase salës and profíts. Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com, SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.