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Site Insight
Don't let your web presence ruin a company image

By Theo Gantos

I've seen enough bad websites in the past couple of years to last a lifetime. The gap is so vast between the very best and the worst and far too small between the worst and the merely mediocre.

Keeping a few simple rules in mind can save you thousands of dollars and keep you out of my web "Hall of Shame." This week we focus on the overall strategies and next week, we'll give away some of the best-kept secrets of the elite webmasters.

Start with a memorable domain name that is long enough to be unique but easy to remember. For example, my company changed the Grand Rapids Symphony's domain from an awkward grapidsymphony.org to the simpler grsymphony.org when we built and launched their website. Even longer names can be accommodated. For example, hasbro-toys.com conveys a brand name as well as the product line.

Recycling is a great idea for our planet, but not on the web.

Don't turn to your existing print materials as a crutch when developing a website. Start over from scratch and redesign your image for the web. It's a totally different medium and what works well in print is, at best, boring online. If you can, hire an experienced graphic designer to work with the web developer to design the "look and feel" of the site. If not, at least read Robin Williams' "The Non-Designer's Design Book" to save yourself from making the most common design mistakes.

Write out your goals for the site. Can you easily answer the question, "Why are we building a website?" If you can't, don't bother. The "web mall" and "chamber of commerce" type single page sites are hardly worth the effort.

In fact, a bad one-pager can undo years of image building. An old aphorism springs to mind to illustrate, "Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt."

Know your audience(s). Most sites may have several different target markets for different parts of the site. A good website is one medium and only one part of an overall marketing strategy. Work your web presence into your overall marketing strategy so that it complements your other advertising efforts.

Have a theme for the site and mark the trail for your visitors. Color schemes and layout should be standardized so it doesn't look like a trip through a carnival fun house (known as the "clown pants" design style).

Make sure that you can tell where you are intuitively and where to go for what you want. More is almost always not better.

Remember, the web is 3D, not top-down. Each page can be linked to other pages, more like tinker-toys than a slide show.

Use three dimensional thinking and you'll be prepared for people who can jump from a search engine page right into the middle of your site. Hardly anyone goes through the home page any more. Always have a link to the home page to help keep your bearings and identify whose site you are visiting.

If at all possible, put some unique and interesting information online that will help to draw people to your site. Think of the web as a soft-sell and NOT a hard-sell medium. If you give people information that they are seeking that relates to your business, they will think of you when they need your products or services. The best strategy for web site promotion is therefore an "attract" strategy. You want to attract people to your site.

Plan ahead to budget for ongoing maintenance. There's nothing as stale as an old website. Because the web is instant just-in-time publishing, you should be adding and updating constantly. You should plan on about 10 percent of your initial development costs for monthly maintenance.

Next week: Tips and techniques from expert web developers to keep your site fun, fast, and easy to use while minimizing development and maintenance costs.

Theo Gantos is president of TEKA, a technology consulting firm. Contact him: