Your web site should convey your firm's identity. The appearance, content and user friendliness of your site demonstrates your style and reveals your level of
professionalism. As much as the Internet is relied upon these days, your web site should serve as the centerpiece in your marketing providing a solid combination of resource
library and publicity machine. It should include your story, your mission and any education you wish to provide to your community of clients, prospective clients,
members, supporters, friends, etc.
Whether we're building a one page site or a five hundred page site, we employ the same methodologies. Here are some considerations when planning your web site...
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expand - close MAKE IT USEFUL
Visitors will gladly exchange time for value and insight. Provide content that is valuable and relevant. Interactive tools help clients make useful
assessments and measurements that address their specific needs and concerns.
expand - close DO IT FOR THEM
Your site's content and navigation should be for your clients, not for the creative artist within. Keep the site design simple,
intuitive to use and easy to follow. A few considerations:
- Include open space on every page
- Select a palette that's pleasing to the eye
- Map a logical layout
- Allocate pages evenly, not too much or too little on a page
- Keep the menu system (navigation) consistent and on every page
- Provide simple instructions to open, download or view items
- Limit images to those that serve a purpose
- Flashing and dancing items are annoying and divert attention
away from your message
expand - close LET THEM DRIVE
Your site should engage visitors and there is no better way to engage than to make it interactive. At every conceivable opportunity,
enable visitors to sign up for newsletters, request special reports, stream an audio program, link to further content, send an e-mail message, offer an opinion, download a file, etc.
expand - close RAPID RESPONSE
When a visitor contacts you, respond immediately. A form or email submission inquiring about your products or services will not improve with age.
Other than to counter an extended leave, we don't recommend using auto-responders. They only tell the client that a machine has seen their inquiry.
expand - close KEEP IT FRESH
Adding new content to your site promotes repeat visits. Align your change frequency to be within the expected term of repeat visits. For some
organizations this could be weekly, for others it may be quarterly.
expand - close CREDIBILITY
Including your company's address is a "must have" legitimacy builder. Go beyond legitimacy. Describe team members and provide professional
and industry associations. Include intellectual assets that demonstrate thought leadership; publications, white papers, technical notes, application notes, surveys, studies, etc.
expand - close SPEED, GLORIOUS SPEED
Your site should load quickly no matter which browser or PC a visitor uses. Don't assume that visitors are using high-speed broadband connections,
be sure to account for the often slower mobile networks. Minimally, optimize ALL images for web presentation. One un-optimized image can bloat a page load by a factor of thousands.
expand - close IF YOU PASS GO...
So you have a nice site, now you need the visitors. There are many effective things you can do to inexpensively drive
traffic to your site (see our Marketing Services page). We offer friendly free guidance as well as a seasoned palate of Internet
marketing professionals to provide consultation and services.
