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Business Oriented Website
Because
of the attractive potential of Web technology - such as its worldwide
reach and ability to interact with users, and the apparent ease
of building sites, many organizations are rushing headlong to establish
Internet and intranet Web sites. But many are taking a haphazard
approach, resulting in wasted money and, more significantly, lost
opportunity. Forrester Research found that one of the most common
mistakes companies make when implementing Web sites is not having
a clear vision or purpose for the sites.
The
following sections present a business-oriented approach to planning,
deploying, and refining your Web site. By addressing the factors
identified in this process, you can take full advantage of the power
of Web sites to maintain a competitive edge. There are six fundamental
steps in the process:
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Understand
the medium
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Reach
new audiences
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Sell
products and services
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Generate
brand awareness
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Increase
customer satisfaction
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Disseminate
information
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Receive
feedback
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Automate
business processes
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Plan
your Web site
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Plan
your site within the context of your overall business strategy
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Define
your goals
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Identify
opportunities to increase revenue
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Identify
opportunities to decrease costs
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Define
your target audience
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Establish
and monitor objectives
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Deploy
your Web site
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Design
according to your end requirement, and according to your target
market
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Use
tools that contribute to your business objective
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Design
your site from a usability perspective and not merely from
an aesthetic perspective
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Build
in the means to monitor and continually evaluate your Web
site
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Solicit
visitor information
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Market
your Web site
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Leverage
Existing Marketing resources: put your URL on
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List
with Online Information and Directory Resources
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Search
Engines
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Directories
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Announcement
Sites
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Award
Sites and "Cool Site Guides"
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Banner
Advertising
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Putting
Advertisements in Electronic Publications
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Organizing
online events such as chats, surveys and contests
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Visiting
public domain message boards
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Using
Automatic tools (not preferred!)
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Analyze
the results
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Number
of site visits and specific page visits per day
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The
size of the audience you are reaching
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Pages
that are most popular
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Pages
that are least popular
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Visitor
paths through the site
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How
users typically travel through your site
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Online
questionnaires and feedback
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Visits
derived from ad banners
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Which
banners and ads producing good or poor click-through
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Which
click-through are metamorphosing into revenue generating business
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Refine
and maintain your Web site
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Leverage
interaction to improve your site
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Establish
an iterative process to keep your Web site optimized
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Experiment
and monitor the results
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Make
changes and watch their effect
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Review
site marketing strategies
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Reconcile
your Web site strategy in the context of your overall business
strategy
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Stay
in tune with technology
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Website Development
