Salt? Blindfold? Hope For The Best?

A site cannot sell unless the business knows what it's selling and to whom.

As the Web gets more competitive the standard web design approach of putting on a blindfold, spinning round three times and throwing salt over the shoulder no longer works.

The Tea Leaves Are Dark - Ah, I See A Customer!

Who are you selling to?

A casual web user? A business-to-business purchaser? Mr. Bloggs, who has no time and three screaming kids biting at his ankles? Josephine Smith, who will only give her credit card details over the phone because she doesn't trust the internet? Pamela, who spends all her time dreaming about holidays and who wants to revel in that dream before making a purchase? Dave, who needs part number XYZ1886ab for his vacuum cleaner right NOW!? Steve, who's researching his next car purchase and needs hard facts to persuade his other half to let him buy it?

You're Selling Emotions!

Huh!!? ?

How can anyone sell emotions?

Look at car ads on T.V. and see how they sell reliability, status, sex appeal or hope.

Walk into your local supermarket to buy an apple and see how clean and bright the environment is, how the apples are selected to appeal to the eye, and how neatly displayed they are

You Need a Strategy!

No matter how good your product or how well your product makes an emotional connection with customers you still need a strategy.

You have to work out who you're selling to, how you're going to present yourself and your product, what your business model is (how to extract value from your product - money, relationships, time, status etc.), how you anticipate the product cycle developing, how you might adapt to changing markets, what backup plans you have, who you're going to employ - well, the list is endless.

Think of it as navigating forests and mountains and having the mindset to cope with all eventualities.

Your website needs to support your strategy. Who's your website designed to appeal to? How will it help you extract value - will it offer freebies to build up relationships with customers, will it have reviews to help them in the research phase of the buying cycle, will it save time by getting customers to do most of the work in solving their own problems? As your products mature will you leave leave them stuck on a page to slowly die, or will you shift them to another part of your site or promote them in a different way? As your market changes will you show more videos, change your layout, start a newsletter, promote regular offline conferences, allow reviews? If everything goes pear-shaped and you need to use a backup plan can you add a new section seamlessly to your site or promote another range of products in a completely different way?

My Brand, My Brand, My Kingdom For My Brand!

In an age of technological commoditisation your brand will become one of your greatest assets. Make sure that you own the .com and country code top level (e.g. co.uk) domain extensions of your brand name.

To learn about the multi-million pound industry of domaineering the best place to start is with Frank Schilling's defunct blog at SevenMile.com. The foundation of your internet business is your domain name .

I currently recommend buying your domain name from Moniker. If you're searching for domain names use the free Domain Name Analyzer. Avoid third party websites that let you search for domain names - athough such websites are theoretically honest it would be very for unscrupulous owners or employees to register good names that you happened to be checking out. Read around.   :-)

I currently host with Hosting Matters who have proved themselves reliable and extremely fast and efficient when it comes to support issues. You get exactly what you pay for and for a business reliability is at a premium.

What's the Point Of Your Site?

Does your site have a purpose ?

For example, do you want to make money?

It's not enough - you need to know HOW your site is going to make money.

Will your products be sold directly from your site?

Will your site be promoting an affiliate programme?

Will you be promoting an e-mail newsletter in order to foster a long-term  relationship with potential customers?

Will you be encouraging user-generated content   (Amazon, E-bay) that will enhance the value of the products you're selling?

Will your site be information-rich for customers to browse through in the research phase of the buying cycle?

Will you be providing a service that a bricks and mortar store cannot?

Will you be offering a reassuring after-sales service for people who've bought from your offline store?

There are many ways to create conversions (sales, leads, sign-ups, participation, mind share). When you know the purpose of your site and what you're selling, have an idea of the types of customers you're selling to and what direction your company is headed in, then the actual design process can begin.

Your Website Needs an Architect

Houses are designed by architects.

Websites should be designed using the principles of Information Architecture.

At its simplest, Information Arhitecture describes how pages are connected together in such a way that the site makes sense to its users, the search engines and the website owner.

As with building architecture, Information Architecture requires clarity about the purpose of the site (the needs of the customers and the needs of the business), how the site fits in with its environment (customers who have visited similar sites will have certain expectations), visitor flow around the site (as much as can be predicted), aesthetics, usability, navigation and construction and maintenance costs.

From a SEO point of view a website should also have a hierarchical, tree-like structure (to help the search engines figure out what the site's all about), internal links pointing to important pages - for example, my expertise is in WordPress - links pointing out to authority sites (emphasising the site's place in the topical network i.e. where it fits into the web), no duplicate content (use of robots.txt and Meta nofollow if necessary) and category keywords for the main navigation.

You can read the simple information architecture analysis that I did for Alchemweb  here

If Your Website Was A Person, Would You Trust Her?

Once the Information Architecture has been created it's time to draw a rough sketch of the Home page and the inner pages.

The Home page has a lot of tasks to do - it has to give the site an identity, say clearly what the purpose of the site is, establish trust and credibility and tempt visitors further into the site.

Inner pages also have tasks. Each inner page will have a primary task (for example selling, informing, reassuring, establishing credibility, providing linkbait) and should be focussed on that task. Secondary tasks include clear navigation to other pages, cross-selling other products, comments and reviews, the reinforcement of a theme etc.

A site without focus may indicate a business without focus. How many sites have you seen where the inner pages are a jumble of Adsense? What message does that send to potential customers?

Can You Be Effortless Without Putting In Effort?

Website design has to incorporate the principles of 'usability' , famously expressed in Steve Krug's book 'Don't make me think!'

Usability means being easy to use, in essence putting the customers first and making everything effortless for them.

That means happy customers.

Because they have so much information available to them on the internet (and so much of it is badly presented) users have learnt to be ruthless in assessing websites.

You have to meet their requirements within a few seconds or they're OFF.

This follows the theory of 'information foraging' where a surplus of information means visitors snack on bite-sized chunks, following what they hope is an information scent to their goal. If there's no information 'scent' then they quickly leave.

Simple Isn't Stupid (In Fact It's Clever!)

Headlines should be big.

Related items such as navigation buttons should be grouped together.

Navigation should be easy to understand and page headings should reflect the words used in the navigation.

Links should look like links, and it should be clear where the links lead to.

There should be plenty of 'white space' on the page so that the user is not distracted by the 'noise' of too many competing demands for attention.

Text is best presented as black text on a white background in easy-to-digest chunks.

Inner pages should stick with a consistent navigation so that users get their bearings quickly and are confident that they're still in the site.

The Eyes Have It

Generally speaking users will scan the page picking up on its general 'feel', which indicates whether or not the site is credible. Literate users will then skim through headlines and bolded words, trying to figure out if the site contains anything of interest to them. Less literate users are likely to struggle through the text word by word, getting only partially down the page (research).

Eye-tracking heat maps show that literate Western users start in the top left corner of the page and read in an F-shaped pattern. Therefore in these areas use information-carrying headings in the horizontal sweeps, and bullet points with information-rich words in the vertical sweep.

You can view a video of users eye movements here.

And here's a heat-map of an advert in which the model looks straight at you in one image, and at the product in another image. The difference in the model's gaze is almost imperceptible but users pick up on it straight away, showing the power of subtle changes in website design. (Note: at the time of writing the heat-map images have been shown the wrong way round).

Beautiful Means Nothing

Generally speaking the only people interested in the site's graphics are the website owner and the graphics designer. There are lots of highly successful sites out there with minimal graphics such as E-Bay, Amazon and Google. According to this eye-tracking research graphics can act like barriers to the movement of the eye over a page, rather like boulders impeding the flow of water in a stream.

Hiding your conversion trigger ('Click here!') in the middle of an image (a 'boulder') might not always be a Good Thing (as the stream of people rushes past, ignoring it). And whilst graphics can stimulate discussion in offline Push Marketing ('We've got a product and some Gorgeous Graphics here - hello hello, talk about us!') they don't work so well in online Pull Marketing ('I want a Pink Elephant and I want it Now, No I don't care who Sells it to me, get your Nonsense out of the way!').

With rich media (videos, podcasts, Flash) in an online Pull Marketing world you need to offer an alternative (generally a text version) since life's short and not everyone wants to watch and listen, and not everyone wants to relinquish control for a few minutes whilst they absorb a linear message - they'd much rather be hunting around, scanning and skimming.

Of course graphics and rich media can be an indication of a site's credibility. And on catalogue sites good quality photos and appropriate videos are essential to display products. But a fantastic looking site will not be successful simply because it looks great.

Testing, Testing!

Ultimately the only way to know how easy it is to use your site is to test it. At a basic level this isn't rocket science and can deliver useful results.

Alchemweb offers a basic usability testing service or is happy to provide entry-level usability tuition.

How Did That Happen?
(Or How You Fell In Love and Lost Your Heart!)

Creating and maintaining a succesful website takes work. Just like a company, a web site eventually becomes a living, breathing thing that needs to be created with care and looked after with care.

Alchemweb will help you get started and can advise and assist you in maintaining your website!

If You're Going On a Journey, Shouldn't You Plot Your Route?

I asked myself the questions I would ask my clients.

• Why do I want a website ?
• Where do I see my company in ten years time ?
• What is my business model and basic strategy ?
• Who are my potential clients?
• What exactly is it that I'm selling?
• How will my website help my clients?
• How will my website help my business?

One aspect that emerged from this questioning was the need to educate clients. Busy business owners don't have the time or the interest to keep up with the latest web developments. Therefore I have to bring them up to speed quickly.

This means marketing Alchemweb at two levels - to novices and more experienced web users.

Who Are These Strangers?

Bearing in mind my strategy and business model I then came up with several customer personas.

Carol, late 20s, is toying with the idea of starting up a decorating business. She hasn't got much money, knows next to nothing about websites but thinks it would be a good idea to have one. She wants a good looking, cheap site to give customers more information than is possible on a business card and would be best off with a £750 brochure site.

Jo, early 30s, uses an E-bay shop for selling jewelry. She's hard-working, focussed and analytical. She plans on starting a family in a couple of years time but wants to get her business off the ground first. She wants a professional-looking site that she can add to herself and that allows clients to leave comments. She wants to see if e-commerce will work for her. A Wordpress site with a semi-integrated shopping cart and occasional phone consultations as and when needed would probably be her best bet.

Kevin, early 50s, is outgoing and bossy. He runs a small and very successful motorcycle repair company with ten employees and is very involved in motorbike clubs. He currently has a token website but his son thinks he should move with the times and do more, perhaps showcasing special offers on accessories and vintage spares, running a forum, setting up a mailing list etc. An initial step would be a one hour tutorial with Kevin and his son. WordPress with a semi-integrated shopping cart, a forum and a mailing list would probably be his best solution.

An outline plan

Next step: I jotted down notes on the Information Architecture for this website.

Purpose of this site: leads, credibility, information, reassurance, personality, window-shopping, search engines / adwords first point of contact.

User goals: credibility, speed, ease of use, ease of contact, printed brochure, friendly, peace of mind, simplicity.

Visual design: Simple, uncluttered, lots of white space, minimal clicking, friendly, non-corporate, limited navigational choices.

Maintenance costs: low to zero.

Visitor flow: See diagram below

Everyone Likes A mirror, Especially If It Lies!

After this I designed the graphics. A good rule of thumb is to design the main graphics as a mirror that reflects the idealised self-image of your potential customers. Alternatively, create eye-candy that's restful on the eyes, or allow form to follow function as in Amazon or Google.

With the main graphics in place and a 'feel' for the site emerging I tweaked the colours to see what fitted in best.

Is This Your Voice?

Then it was time to create the body copy. What purpose would the headlines have? What personalities would the body text appeal to? What overall tone of voice should I adopt? Were there plenty of Calls To Action, etc.?

Proud Mum or Dad!

A good quality website takes time to design and build.

It needs love and attention.

But like a baby, it's worth it!