"How To Analyze Your Website"

by Jerry Bader

How good is your website?

Does it do its job?

Is it effective?

These are all good questions that every business owner and marketing manager needs to ask him or herself. The website has become an essential tool for business. We all know we have to have a website, but are we using this venue to its greatest advantage?

Most people responsible for their company's websites have stats packages and counters to tell them how many hits, how many unique visitors, where they are coming from, what their IP addresses are, what browser they're using, and of course the all important monitor resolution. So what! Who cares? The real question is do we have an effective website?

Now if you have a transactional website, commonly referred to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of sales you are generating from your site, which is important, but do you really know how effective your site is? How many orders are you losing because of bad layout, awkward design, confusing navigation, and poor copy? How many potential clients have you chased away because you haven't put a phone number on your site and an accessible real-person that can answer questions?

A website is your business' public face. Big businesses can look like mom and pop operations and mom and pop operations can look like General Motors. The design of your website should not be taken lightly, its budget should not be an afterthought, and the designer you hire should be someone who understands more than code. Your Web-designer should be a multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can counsel you how best to deliver your marketing message, and someone who can go beyond technical issues.

You can spend a lot of money and have someone analyze your site for you, but are you really going to believe him, are you really going to act on their recommendations? You can't sell somebody something they really don't want - that may sound obvious, but believe me, sales people do it everyday. If you don't think you need a new website, you aren't going to spend the money to have one built. So the best way to tell if you need one is to analyze the one you already have, yourself.

Below is a set questions you can ask yourself. If you answer them honestly, you'll know whether you need a new site or not. After you've gone through the process, ask some colleagues to do the same. See if your answers compare.

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?

Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What is your website's purpose? a. Transactional sales-oriented site b. Customer service support site c. How to instructional site d. Product or service demonstration site e. Lead generation site f. Marketing, branding, positioning site g. Promotional campaign site h. Viral or buzz creation site

2. Is Your Website Focused?

Too many businesses both large and small use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything you do, everything you've done, and everything you ever thought of doing. This won't work. Customers are like children; they want clarity, direction, and unequivocal answers. Your website should be focused on a singular function. URLs are cheap, there is no reason you can't have different websites for every major thing you do, or every marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?

Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too deep to find what you're looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool. If your website doesn't work properly, the only thing you're communicating is incompetence. How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website's Construction Balance Competing Concerns?

Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, client-side, server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, transaction efficiency all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffic numbers? Did you start with an IT solution like a database, and build your site around a poorly conceived information delivery system. Does your website's design reflect your sites' defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not sales. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

6. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of their business' marketing initiatives. Everything your company does should reflect an over-riding ethos, point-of-view, and personality. If your marketing collaterals don't match your website presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

7. Is content king on your website?

I once had a fairly large manufacturing client ask me to build a website based on a business card and ten 8x10 glossies of discontinued merchandise. This fellow was so paranoid that his competitors would see what he was doing that he hid his products from his customers. This business is now bankrupt. We've all heard the saying 'content is king'. Is content king on your website? Does your website adequately display and explain what you do, what products you sell, and what services you provide? Are there examples of your work? Are there testimonials from your customers? Have you provided information on how to order, how to use, and how to resolve problems? Is content really king on your website?

8. Is your website an experience?

You watch television, you listen to the radio, you read a magazine, but you experience a website. Unlike other marketing vehicles, websites provide you the opportunity to deliver your marketing message with the full complement of multimedia tools. Websites can stimulate all the senses, sight, sound, and interactive touch in order to communicate and connect with your audience. Websites are not brochures. Visitors shouldn't just see your website, they should experience it. Is your website an experience?

9. Does your website have a distinctive look?

The notion of the flaming animated logo has become a cliché for bad design and style over substance, but that does not mean your website should be aesthetically boring and visually dreary. Your site should display clarity of vision; it should provide functional page layout; its use of colors, type, and static and kinetic visuals should be distinctive and purposeful. Your website should provide a defining "Look" that enhances your business personality. Does your website display a distinctive look that represents your business personality?

10. Do you list appropriate contact information on your website?

I remember going to a meeting with a client who was in the construction business. The Vice President of the company was hopping mad. He demanded his email address be taken off the site immediately. He wasn't going to waste any more time dealing with client emails and inquiries. Websites are all about connecting you to your clients, not hiding from them. If you think you can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ and Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think again. Does your website have adequate contact information? Do you list appropriate email addresses and phone numbers for the people responsible for various aspects of your business?

There you have it. Ten questions that when answered honestly will tell you whether or not you have a website that works and whether or not you need to rebuild.

About the Author
Jerry Bader, is a partner in MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in creating multimedia websites that enhance their clients business opportunities by delivering their marketing messages using the latest audio, video, Flash, and interactive techniques.

MRPwebmedia developed the Sonic Personalities© concept that effectively conveys your brand, image and message on websites and DVD/CD presentations using custom-crafted voice-overs.

"Some of the biggest flaws in web designs"

by Florie Lyn Masarate

1. Bad layout formatting.

Try to use your judgment when it comes to layout. They will serve as your best guide. Do not just center on your body text. The text and content should be offset, and not overrun by graphics. Sentences should wrap nicely from left to right. Navigation should not take up half of the screen. Body text should not be 60 pixels high. Basically common sense issues that anyone with a clear head can understand and appreciate.

2. No content or outdated content.

No information or content to go along with the site is a terrible mistake many are making. It is not surprising why your visitors leave at first glance. Know that people wait and spend money to view your pages. So it is a courtesy and a necessity to provide something to reward their efforts. By content, it means something people would want to see or read. It is not just a string of clipart, GIF animations or "under construction" signs.

3. Sloppy navigation and orphan pages.

Allow easy access to pages. Always include a link back to the main page. Oftentimes, only a "back" button is all that is provided when a guest has penetrated into an inner page. Many sites, especially those with frames, can be accessed by search engines into a portion of a complete page. These have no links to the main page and leaves visitors stranded and can be considered "Orphan Pages." Try to put a link back to your main page on every page, so that visitors would not be trapped.

4. The use of technology.

Do not bombard visitors with technology just for the sake of using them. Technology is great fun to use, if used with wisdom and care. You may think it is cool, but 99% of the world does not think so. All Javascripts, Java applets, VRMLs, and other high-tech and possibly error-prone technology should be used only when the page calls for it. Do not use it just because it is there for the taking.

"The Best Free Ebooks Online"

5. Midis and non-stop animations.

Nothing on pages should be continuous and without a way to stop them. MIDIs are nice little add-ons that can add atmosphere to a page. Provide a way to stop it before your readers become irritated. If you doing these things to your site, stop now before it is too late. For those who does not, do not even think about it.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

About the Author
Florie Lyn Masarate got the flair for reading and writing when she got her first subscription of the school newsletter in kindergarten. She had her first article published on that same newsletter in the third grade.

"Web Design Is Not For The Squeamish: 9 Things You Should Know Before Designing A Website "

by Diane Dickler

The internet has become an integral part of our lives. Everyday more and more websites are going online. With the advent of online sitebuilders included with many hosting packages, anyone can easily create a web presence and feel comfortable knowing that the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor is pretty simple to learn. You don't need to know how to write HTML because the sitebuilding software generally has a word processing type of interface and all you need to do is pop things in here and there. But soon you'll realize that there are many limitations to what you can and can't do. If you're satisfied with these limitations, then nothing anyone says will matter.

Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is freedom. Freedom to create a website exactly the way you want it to look and perform the way you want it to perform. Of course, there's more to web design than writing HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code and putting pretty pictures on a webpage. It takes time, skill and patience to master the concepts needed in order to create an effective website.

I've listed at least nine items that I feel you must know a little bit about before seriously embarking on designing a website. They aren't listed in any particular order of importance as each web designer has his/her own opinion as to the importance of each one.

1. HTML. One must learn the HTML language, which is not difficult, but nevertheless a necessity, since this is the only way that the browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Opera, etc.) will be able decipher the code in order to view a webpage. There are numerous places to learn HTML for free on the internet. The one place I would recommend would be to go to the W3C website. Here is where all the standards are written. You can find them located here http://www.w3schools.com/.

2. CSS. It would be a big advantage for you to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS gives you total control over the style and layout of your webpages. By learning CSS, you would only need to edit one file in order to make some changes in all of your pages. You wouldn't have to go into each webpage separately to change fonts, or background colors and images. It's really kind of neat when you think about how much you can do with the inclusion of just one or two lines. I like to call it my 'magic file' because that's what it does...it performs magic instantly!

3. TITLES,META TAGS and KEYWORDS. There has been volumes written about these items. But for my purpose here, I will just mention what each are and where they're located. Suffice it to say that knowing a bit about each one will only enhance your learning experience in designing an effective webpage. Every webpage or HTML document must have a title. The title should be representative of what your website is about. It is located between the and area at the top of your document. HTML tags which describe the content of a webpage and utilized by search engines are called META Tags. They provide useful information to the search engines such as Author, Copyright, Description, Expirations, Language, Keywords and Robots. There are others but those are the basic ones used. One of the more important META Tag used is the Keyword META Tag. This is where you put your specific keywords and key phrases. The keywords you choose which best describes your webpage is what the search engines look for. They also notice how often these keywords and key phrases are used within the webpage. One must be careful how the keywords are used because too many and it's considered spamming the search engines, too few and they aren't even noticed.

4. DOCTYPE. DOCTYPE is short for "Document Type Definition", or, DTD, and it informs the web browsers which version of (X)HTML you are using in order to process it. The DOCTYPE must appear at the very top of every webpage that you design. You can check W3C's webpage here at http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html for a list of recommended DOCTYPE's.

5. COPYRIGHT INFO. You can find out all about the copyright laws here at http://www.copyright.gov/, but what it basically boils down to is - if you didn't write it, you will need approval of the person who did in order to use it within your website, or there could be real problems for you with copyright infringements. It's against the law to take what someone else wrote and pass it off as your own. This goes for everything from photo's, clip art, designs, website templates to articles and website content on other websites.

6. CONTENT. I'm sure you've heard the statement that "Content Is King". What this means is that whatever you write within your website (the content), not only does it have to be original but it should possess a number of your keywords and key phrases. These keywords and key phrases should fit in within the content and make sense with whatever it is you're writing about. This content will not only explain to any visitor what you're website is all about, it will be used by the search engine's that rate how important your content is in relation to the keywords listed.

7. LINKS. Links within your website are important, whether you're linking to other websites or other websites are linking to you. However, with Google's new update "Jagger", Google is placing more importance on credibility and added-value, rather than the amount of links you have. Google continues to change their algorithms by which websites are rated and it's becoming almost comical that many a website owner must scramble to figure out the best way to make changes in order to either keep their high rankings or even get noticed. It will be interesting to watch what happens here.

8. VALIDATION. There is much to be said about being validated. There are some web designers that feel it's not important, but know that I feel that it's extremely important. What exactly does 'being validated' mean? Simply put, it means that the coding of your website has passed the test in utilizing the W3C conformance standards by which web documents have been written. It places no value on the content, just the HTML or XHTML structure. There is also a validation service for passing the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) conformance standards. Both of these services are provided for free by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

9. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the key factor by which your website will be rated by Google, MSN, Yahoo or any of the other search engines. Quite simply it's optimizing your website for the search engines to notice you. Again, the importance is placed on content. There are many SEO companies that promise high rankings, or worse, they promise you number one ranking if you hire them to optimize your website. Be wary of anyone that makes those statements. Know that there is no possible way for them to make such promises because there is no way to know how a website will rank. You an submit your own URL to some of the major search engines yourself at no cost. Now whether or not you get noticed is another story entirely, but know that eventually your website will be indexed by the various robot programs that most search engines use anyhow.

In summary, there is much to consider when designing a website. It's not an easy task and the importance of the items I've listed should not be ignored. It also takes a bit of ingenuity and creativeness in addition to the semantics, but with practice, patience and knowledge, it can be done.

About the Author
Diane Dickler is the owner of http://www.dironwebdesign.com/ where she specializes in creating and hosting websites for her clients. Diane believes that knowledge is the key to power where she continues to learn new concepts. Previously, she was the Managing Editor for a large company's intranet and has taken the next step in the creative process.