How to develop a successful website
If yours is a successful organisation, you will understand the importance of meeting customers' and clients' needs and wants - which is why you can spend millions of dollars designing memorable experiences for your consumers. You hire knowledgeable, helpful staff, provide expensive training programs, and build brightly-lit showrooms - all ultimately increasing market share. But are you prepared to expend the same energy in developing your online presence? Start by embracing several well-proven principles...
1. Understand your website users.
The problem with unsuccessful and unused websites is that they have been developed to disseminate what the organisation believes should be disseminated, rather than first finding out what the targeted user wants and needs. So, the first step must always be to ask: Who are our users? Are they novices or experts in computer use? Are they new or repeat users? Are they males or females? What information or services do they require? How do they prefer to access that information? Under what circumstances? What will they do with the information? And so on. Websites are for users.
2. Hire a specialist website designer.
If you want a site that brings real value to your users, you'll need to employ a professional website designer who has experience in coalescing your company's goals with user needs, who can cater for both proficient and novice web users, and for both browsing and directed users. There is no substitute for quality.
3. Know what you want to accomplish.
In developing your website, the designer will need to work with you to determine the purpose of the site. Your needs might include:
to establish a presence; to increase public awareness; to increase sales; to generate business leads; to offer customer support; to supplement existing advertising and promotional efforts; to generate requests for information; to build business or store traffic; to survey customers; to provide the latest information on products, services, events or sales; to post job opportunities; to build a database for mailings; to provide directions; and so on
You will also need to detail for the designer the kind of information you want to get from the site, for example:
number of visitors; when they visited and for how long; their e-mail and postal address; their phone and fax numbers; visitors' comments; which pages or products are most popular; and so on.
