Boschel Creative

Description

Is your web site built with success in mind? What is it doing for your business? Web sites can be your most effective marketing strategy. A successful site should undoubtedly have a professional look, as well as information in which a visitor can learn, identify and quickly understand how your products or services can help them. But, do you have a solid plan in place that defines the main objectives for your site, who your audience is, and how visitors will be coming to your site? Have you considered your site architecture, content, usability, SEO, graphic design, coding and programming, and marketing and promotion? For a site to be successful, we have compiled various elements that we meet in every project we do. How does your site match up Solid Plan: Proper planning and a solid foundation is a major factor in the success of any web site. The more thought you put into it at the beginning, the less time it takes to build the site with less headaches along the way. Some questions to ask yourself: Why does my company need a web site? Why do my customers need a web site? What are the main goals for my site? Can my site actually DO something for my business in regards to sales, saving time or saving money? What is my budget? Should my site have anything special, such as multimedia, video, discussion boards, calls to action, etc.? These are just a sampling of questions - the main point is that if you can nail down the exact goals for your site and who you are trying to reach, you have more of a chance for success once the site is completed. Effortless Navigation: This is a critical factor. Users who visit a site and can't find what they are looking for leave - and never return. You just lost the only opportunity you had in making that prospect an actual customer. Your web site navigation should be prominent, consistent, straightforward and easy to find. Many sites use "cute" language for their navigational buttons - but if users don't understand that language, they won't understand how to get the information they need. In addition, you should have text links of your navigation at the bottom of your site, and Back To Top link towards the bottom of your longer pages. Simply - you want to make it as easy as possible to get anywhere on your site from any page. Home Page: Your home page is the most important page on your site, as it is usually what users visit first. Therefore, it should (1) make an impression visually, (2) summarize all or most of your services, products, etc., and (3) set the foundation for the remainder of your site. Service or Products Page: This page explains what your company offers to potential customers, and clearly explains what you do. Bulleted lists are an easy way to accomplish this. In addition, be sure to use terminology that your audience will know and understand. [ back to top ] Testimonials, Client Lists, or Portfolio Pages: For most corporate sites, you should have at least one "credibility" page to help gain the trust and confidence of your prospects. Testimonials and portfolio samples demonstrate to your prospect that you can solve their problem with your service or product. Some prospects may recognize the name of a customer whom you have done work for in the past as a credibility factor. By all means, if there is no breach of interest, post this credible information on your site. Contact Page & Information: Many users who visit your site will simply be looking for your contact information - phone, address or email. If this information is hard to find, they will leave your site and go somewhere else, or become frustrated with you as a company. If possible, post your basic contact information, such as phone number and email address, on every page of your site - even multiple locations at times (at the top and bottom for instance). Your web site should have a contact page with full address and contact information. This page might also include such things as general inquiry forms, request information or quote forms, and driving directions. Attention to Detail: People will always notice "little" things such as spelling or grammar mistakes. If your web site has little mistakes, what does that say about your business? Captivating Content: Content plays a very important role in a successful web site. If you're going to take up space with four paragraphs of text, make it meaningful, encouraging, and to the point. Your web site should be updated regularly. If a user goes to your site and sees information posted from 3 years ago, they may interpret that as a sign you don't really care about your business. The user may instantly leave your site thinking you're business has closed or the product/service you carry is out-of-date. In addition, updating content is beneficial for search engines and your rankings. Google, MSN and Yahoo favor sites with content that is updated often. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): When searching for a product or service, the majority of people go to the internet first, as opposed to the Yellow Pages or other printed material. Most users will arrive on your site as the result of entering a key phrase through a search engine. You must have effective search engine optimization in place to get ranked high enough to place on the first 2 or 3 pages of a search engine list. The majority of users will not look beyond that point. [ back to top ] Performance: With high-speed and DSL, people are impatient with the online world. If you have a beautiful site, but users have to wait many seconds for an image or animated graphic to download, they will most likely leave. Because of this, you should avoid graphics or animations with large file sizes. Technologically Compatible: Many firms that build web sites try to use the "latest" technology and the most recently developed scripts to integrate "new" or "cool" functionality. Even though your site is built with good intentions, this new technology may prevent your site from working on older computers or browsers. Users will simply leave and go elsewhere if your site cannot display properly on their older system. Therefore, make sure your site is created with fundamental web standards in place and works uniformly on all browsers and platforms. Marketing Strategy: "If you build it, they will come" only applies to ball fields and Hollywood (Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner). It unfortunately doesn't apply to the online world. You have to have an effective marketing strategy in place to promote your site. SEO will help, but you will still need to market your site both online and offline. Measure Your Results: Your site may have all of these key elements listed above, but is it really successful? You should have some tools in place to measure how successful your site is. Most web site hosting companies carry their own statistics applications. You can also find free statistics tools online. In addition to these, you should have your own internal measuring tools - i.e. how are you responding to various inquiries? Are you asking prospects how they heard about your company, service or product? The success of your site takes upfront planning, as well as continuous work after the site is up and running. With a solid foundation and an online/offline marketing plan in place, you’ll see that your site will gain in popularity, while it opens up your business to potential customers. Boschel Creative is conscious of each of these elements when developing a site for a new client. Contact us today to ensure your site is built with success in mind. [ back to top ]

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