Looking for a Great Website?

What matters most isn't always obvious.

By Alan J. Goldstein, MEE MBA

President, The Computer Studio

After 12 years of developing web projects for clients, I have found that most people are on the wrong track when they start shopping for a website.

Unlike almost any other product or service, you can’t actually buy a great site. That doesn’t mean you can’t pay a web developer, and receive a great end product. But, like true love, the price is more than money.

Even deciding whether a site is great isn’t quite that obvious. A website (with some exceptions) isn’t there as a work of art, it is there to work, just like any other business asset. Its success can therefore only be viewed in light of the business objectives that are driving its creation. All too often, this is just a vague notion such as ‘It should help us get more business.’

The importance of methodology

To most people, a great site is one that accomplishes its objectives. Paying a web developer by itself will almost never achieve this result. You have to be part of the effort, both in defining your objectives and participating in the processes that will accomplish them. No one can do that for you.

What you should look to your web developer for is a well defined, structured process that will guide you both to the right solution, and make you part of it.

This process should start with a requirements phase, which may be brief or elaborate depending on the complexity of the project. The first part of the requirements phase is needs definition, which requires that the web developer understand your business, your customers, your current selling process, your objectives and the vision of how you expect to get there. It is then up to the developer to help shape your vision through his or her knowledge of how the technology can interact with your company, your audience and other parts of the solution, such as outbound lead generation.

The look and feel, navigation, and any animations or functional modules should be included in the requirements definition, and all of these elements must support the goals of the site. Close the loop before you start

Once you have a verbal agreement on the main components of your site, it is up to the developer to provide you with written documentation that defines the final product. While some elements, particularly content, may come later, development should not commence until the core requirements have been completed and formally approved.

An example – New account development

Let’s look at a specific example. Assume your firm is a retail insurance agency and your main focus in building the site is to help grow your business. (A website can also provide value in other areas, such as hiring, employee motivation/retention and investor relations.) The first task is to define your business strategy, which might involve a three pronged attack:

1. Develop new accounts
2. Round out your existing accounts
3. Improve account retention

Let’s consider new account development. What are the main steps in the process, and the tools you need to accomplish this task?

1. Outbound contact
2. Lead capture
3. Determine needs
4. Educate prospect
5. Close

The processes that are supported by the website itself, such as lead capture and prospect education, will be defined via a site map, sketches and similar documents, to ensure that everyone on the development team (both on the developer and client side) are on the same page.

If this sounds like an elaborate, costly venture, it may be, but only if the project itself is large. For a small site it may only occupy a few pages, but for a major site for a large company, the required documentation can be quite extensive, as it should be.

There are important areas where your website touches other processes it cannot or will not handle, such as the outbound contact and needs definition. For the website to be effective, those processes must be defined and integrated into the solution.

Websites don’t do outbound marketing. You may get visitors through a search service such as Google, but the number of new visitors that you will attract that way will be minimal, unless you spend a pile of money. Depending on your markets, the pile of money might yield better returns if it were spent elsewhere. Try to ignore the hype of vendors that try to convince you otherwise.

Outbound marketing may involve advertising, mailings, e-mail, telemarketing, native or paid search and networking in person or via social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. Whatever you use, it will probably require a larger investment than the site itself.

As important, the site and the marketing that drives traffic to it need to be carefully coordinated. If your outbound promotion is for professional liability, the landing page the prospect encounters should not only focus on that subject, but it should be a suitable continuation of the outbound campaign.

Similar logic applies on the back end. If the sales follow-up isn’t almost immediate and well integrated with both the outbound marketing and the website experience, the effectiveness of the entire campaign may collapse.