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Invest in Your Web Site

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Mod Dog's Internet Newsletter - Issue 8 - 05/10/01

Published approximately once a month, this newsletter contains information and useful advice to help businesses and organizations develop a more successful Web site and Internet strategy.

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In this issue:

MAKING AN INVESTMENT IN YOUR WEB SITE AND YOUR BUSINESS
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It's no secret that with a sluggish economy, many companies look for places to cut spending. For some, a likely target may be the company's Web site or Internet strategy, the logic being that unless a significant amount of revenue or benefit is directly attributable to the site, it's a "safe" place to cut spending or put off a planned upgrade or marketing campaign.

Is that really the case? Can you "safely" ignore or cut back efforts to improve your Web site or limit your Internet strategy at the same time that you need new customers more than ever, or need to enhance loyalty among existing customers? Isn't now the time to be making sure that you are effectively providing products, services and value to your existing customers so that you don't lose them? Do you have a good, clear grasp of all the ways your Web site can and should be helping your business? After examining these questions, see if the "logic" still applies.

Improving, enhancing or launching a new marketing campaign for your site doesn't have to be a budget buster, but it's important to approach it correctly and to work with someone who understands the principles behind what works and what doesn't.

Two of the most important aspects of making sure your Web site IS a successful part of your business are how easy it is to use (usability) and a professional design and appearance. If your site fails on either one of these issues, it is costing you a lot of lost business.

Remember that just because you and your staff find the site easy to use (because obviously you understand the organization of it), and you like the way it looks, that doesn't mean that your current or potential customers agree. You should test and evaluate your Web site with real world customers and then adjust accordingly.

Upgrades or improvements to a site's usability or overall appearance are always important, but even more so now when capturing each customer, or doubling the number of sales leads you get, can be the difference between a profitable business and one going down the tubes. Can your business afford to ignore these issues?

When evaluating an investment for your Web site, ask yourself these questions:

- Will the investment result in a qualified improvement to the usability and/or appearance of the site?
- Will any new features be added that will be valuable to customers or potential customers?
- Will the investment help you to increase the number of sales leads your site generates?
- What is the lifetime value of each new customer for your business? How many new customers do you need to get, or how much sales revenue needs generated, to reach a break even point for this investment?
- If currently you are converting only 1 or 2 visitors out of a hundred into new customers, will this investment give you a good chance to double or even triple that ratio?

As you can see, improving your Web site doesn't have to involve starting from scratch to have a significant return on your investment. One of the great things about the Internet from a marketing standpoint is that so much of what you spend and what your site generates can easily be tracked, thus taking a lot of the guesswork out of most projects. The key, however, is to make sure that whatever improvements you do undertake are done right, with the right targets in mind, and with a system in place to track and evaluate the results.

The articles linked to below emphasize and expand on some of these points (usability and overall professional appearance). After you read the articles, try to look at your own site through the eyes of someone visiting it for the first time, someone that is a potential new customer, but doesn't know anything about your company or what you specifically do. Then, with the help of a Web professional, evaluate ways to improve your site and make it have the positive impact for your business that you always hoped it would.

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Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: Are Users Stupid?
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010204.html

Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on stupid users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase.

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What Is Design?

Has design gone wrong on the Web? Young designers believe the hype that style is all that matters. Web design should be centered around content. Some call it information architecture.

http://clickz.com/article/cz.3660.html

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When Is It Time to Hire a Professional?

Small companies without a marketing budget frequently have a family member or friend design their Web site. This means they may not realize the full potential of their Web site as a marketing tool.

http://clickz.com/article/cz.3697.html

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The Economist: Design Darwinism.

Mr Nielsen and his colleagues of the Nielsen Norman Group are on to something. If use of the Web is to become ubiquitous, "user interfaces" have to get a whole lot better. The slow adoption of the wireless Internet in Europe and America so far should be seen as a bright red warning light.
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=568303

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A good collection of links on Web site usability.

http://webdesign.about.com/compute/webdesign/cs/usability/index.htm
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/design/usability/

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Two excellent books on this subject that I highly recommend for anyone involved with decision making for a company's Web site:

"Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity"
by Jakob Nielsen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156205810X/ref=ase_webhostingsoluti/102-9104162-0416149

"Don't Make Me Think! : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability"
by Steve Krug, Roger Black
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789723107/ref=ase_webhostingsoluti/102-9104162-0416149

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That's it for this issue of Mod Dog's Internet Newsletter. I hope you enjoyed the information you discovered and learned a few things too. I encourage and welcome any questions or comments you may have regarding anything related to Web site development or Internet strategy.

In response to many requests on how to best get an Internet strategy started, or improve one that may be floundering, I am now offering a one hour, telephone only, consulting service. Please visit my consulting services page for more information.

Best regards,

Brian White
Mod Dog Internet Services, Inc.
Web Site Design \ Web Site Hosting \ E-Commerce Services
Mod Dog Internet Services
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