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Preparing Your Website For Visitors
By Christine Stander (c) 2005

Designing and developing a website today is not as easy as it
was let's say four years ago. There are so many elements to take
into consideration and various media strategies to contend with.

Color, technology, screen resolutions and cross browser
compatibility are but only a few of them. Lately you also have
to contend with and create instinctive navigation, search engine
optimize your site effectively and ensure that all action pages
are merely three clicks away from any given landing page to
ensure effective conversion.

With all these considerations, where does one start?

Starting Out Right

I have always been one to believe that if you spend enough time
planning your site upfront, you will definitely reap the rewards
upon its launch.

Prior to jumping straight into the development of the website,
you would have

1. Established the demand for a specific product or service in
   a given industry.
2. Researched and documented the strategies of the nearest
   competitors.
3. Estimated the intended traffic and market audience the site
   would receive

Only once you have established these points you turn to design.

Designing an effective yet attractive site is the most time
consuming part within the production process.

Assisting the Process

It is very important that the initiator work closely with the
designer(s), copywriter(s) and developer(s) ensuring that they
have access to all information regarding the project, including:

1. Target audience
2. Competitors
3. Technology to be used (XHTML, Flash, Java etc.)
4. Site Map, or basic structure of site including pages and on
   page requirements

Once an initial design has been produced it is advisable that a
web analytics or user behavior expert be brought into the
discussion to ensure that the proposed design will convert as
expected.

Visitors do not like to think when they are on a website.
Present them with the content that they are looking for and make
it easy for them to find related information or make the desired
action such as purchasing, downloading or signing up to whatever
it is that you wish them to do.

There are a few generic details to look out for to ensure that
the design is on the right track, including:

1. Name of Site: The name of the site (and logo) should be
   clearly visible and legible within the header of the site.
   This instills brand awareness and if a catchy name and logo
   are chosen, you will mostly likely find that your return
   visitor rate increases.

2. Instinctive navigation: Is it always clear exactly where you
   are within a site when you are on any given page within the
   site?

3. Underlining of Links: Ensure that all links are underlined.
   This way the outgoing page path and related information is
   immediately determined and visible to the visitor on page
   load.

4. Actions: It almost seems redundant to say, but ensure the
   actions you would like your visitors to take are always clear.
   During a page heat map research project, it was proven that
   the most attention lies on the right hand side of the page.
   The top right corner being the most effective area for actions
   to take place.

The design is one of the first, but none the least the most
important area of site production that needs to be taken into
consideration. Equal parts of design, development and content
are needed to effectively prepare your site for visitors.

Having previously dabbled in all three of these areas myself, I
can appreciatively say that developers prefer to be handed an
accurate story board of the site that they are intended to
build, including a detailed page by page briefing. Just like
site visitors, it is not in the developer's job description to
determine where design meets copy or the initial ideas of the
initiator of the project.

Ensuring that the various departments converse at least once
pre-site design is vital, and will ensure that the website
launched will depict the story board initially requested.

It was quite a change for me as a previous "old school"
developer to change to the W3 Standards, but I must admit that
it really is the best way to ensure cross browser compatibility.
No more having multiple browsers open to ensure the design is
always standard. I will recommend this to anyone still
developing "old school".

Ensuring content delivers the most effective message, capturing
the audience whilst still enticing the search engines is the
third part to the equation. Also confirm that your page titles
accurately convey the message of the page.

Gone are the days of writing M-amount of key-words within
content to try and push your pages higher. Content is king in
the land of search engine optimization. You will often find that
just by writing relevant, on-topic content the copy is optimized
by default. Both spiders and visitors will appreciate this from
your site.

Bring on the Traffic

It is great watching these areas coming together and preparing
for the website launch. Now that your site is built as optimally
as it could be: great design, relevant persuasive content and
development strategy that reaches all markets, all you require
is the traffic.

Consulting with a media strategist at this time is definitely
recommended. They would be able to confirm the best methods for
your niche of the market. Whether you should concentrate solely
on natural search or tie in with a paid search marketing
campaign. A mail shot is always a good idea – especially if the
site has been revamped. The latest craze is Affiliate Marketing,
a very effective way to market your website with proven returns
on investment. A media strategist would be able to confirm
whether your site needs all four or if one of these areas would
suffice.

Follow Through

Your site is launched, you have an effective media strategy in
place and traffic is booming. Is this the end of the site
lifecycle, certainly not!

Don't let the attention of your site slip merely because it has
launched and expect it to fend for itself on the World Wide Web.

Acquire a good log file analyzer program and keep tracking and
measuring the performance of your site.

To ensure that your site stays at peak performance you will
constantly be required to analyze the traffic, visitor
navigation through the site as well as your search engine
optimization levels.

Involve your visitors. Place feedback forms on your site and
request that visitors tell you where, or if they require more
detailed information, or have suggestions for improvement of the
experience.

It is for them that you have built this site, and without them,
your site would be a lonely satellite in a populated galaxy.
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Christine Stander is a professional search engine optimisation
and online marketing strategist with experience in many facets
of search marketing, user behaviour analysis and brand
management. For more information on services offered, kindly
refer to: http://www.incubeta.com
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