Website Owner's manual
The secret to a successful website Here’s the million-dollar question: “What is the secret to a successful website?” I’n not foolish enough to suggest a single answer. However in my decade of working on client websites I have noticed a recurring
pattern. The sites that succeed are those that have a well informed, passionate website owner at the helm. No single thing makes a site successful, but a good website owner will put into place the elements that give a site a fighting chance.
The question should not be “What is the secret to a successful website?” but “How do I become a great website owner?”
No definitive manual exists explaining how to do the job. What does it mean to be a website owner and how can it be done successfully?
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Promoting your site
Budget is rarely assigned to employ a specialist in site promotion and so it often falls to the website owner to fulfill this role. The visitors coming to your website will decline if you do not actively and regularly promote it.
Stress free planning
When it comes to self-assembly furniture, I am a disaster. I am so bad that my wife has banned me from trying and now does it herself. I start off enthusiastic but within a few minutes I am swearing like a trooper and repeatedly hitting planks of wood with whatever implement is near. Catherine, on the other hand, is always composed and in control.She plans what needs to be done. She carefully reads through all the instructions before she begins and collects the tools she will require. By contrast, I believe instructions are for dummies and that I intuitively know where all the pieces fit. The result is that I find myself taking three times as long and become infinitely more stressed. As with assembling flat pack furniture, if you plan your website
development process up front, you will have a considerably less stressful experience. What is more, the result will be better.
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Know your site
Start planning the future of your website by analyzing what you already have. A more formal approach helps to better inform
your decision-making throughout the web project. Qualitative and quantitative feedback are two ways to better understand your current website.
The perfect team
I am a huge fan of the ‘Mission Impossible’ TV show. I loved that each week Ethan Hunt would assemble the perfect team to
complete his mission. People were carefully selected based on their skills and each person would get their moment of glory when their specialty saved the team. From the prosthetics artist to the explosives expert, every person played their part.
Of course the heroes in these stories were only trying to complete an impossible mission. They certainly weren’t doing anything as challenging as building a website! They instinctively knew the plan for success and who they needed to complete it. Unfortunately, in the real world things are much tougher. In chapter two we established an outline of what needed to be done to complete our project. Now that outline must be turned into an actionable plan. You need to assemble your team and brief them properly. How do you find the right people? How do you ensure that your team knows exactly what is expected of them? In this chapter we look at how to write a brief (also known as the scope of work) and select your team. However, first you need to make one vital decision. Are you going to develop your web project in-house or outsource it to an external web agency?
Differences over design
Why does iPod dominate the MP3 player market? The technology is nothing special and it has fewer features than many of its
competitors. What makes it stand out is the user experience. The physical design of the hardware is sleek, simple and attractive. The user interface on the device itself is intuitive and clean. Apple understands the power of design. When it comes to the web, design is no less important. Nothing is more frustrating than a badly designed site.
Good design can be equally powerful. A well-designed interface guides us to the content we need, encourages a positive feeling towards a brand and seduces us into completing calls to action. Get the user experience wrong and the project may fail, no matter how good the content or functionality. No wonder design is one of the most contentious and stressful parts of the development process.
Engaging your visitors
When most organisations launch their first website it is nothing more than a online brochure. Customers do not have the opportunity to respond in a meaningful way or communicate with one another. It was a model born out of years of mass marketing. However, the web is changing and you need to alter the way you communicate with your users. The web is becoming an ever more community-focused medium. High profile sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook are built around communication between those running the site and individual members. This ‘community spirit’ is also spilling over into the commercial sector as organisations such as Dell and Microsoft recognize the benefits of transforming its users from a mass of individuals into a living community. These companies have seen the power of community revitalize damaged
brands, improve products and even reduce costs, but it has come at a cost. Many marketeers struggle with the idea of open two-way communication with customers. It is a model in which the ‘message’ cannot be controlled and is sometimes unpredictable. Why then should you make your site more than brochureware? What are the benefits of cultivating a
community?
Table of Contents
1. The secret to a successful website
2. Stress free planning
3. Don’t forget the explosives expert
4. Differences over design
5. Creating killer content
6. User centric design
7. Ensuring best practice
8. Taking control
9. Decoding technobabble
10. Driving traffic
11. Engaging your visitors
12. Planning for the future
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