Building an EFFECTIVE Website for your Business

Effective Site = Meets business & marketing goals → delivers ROI
Engaging and satisfying your users IS a business / marketing goal.
- Of course, assuming you want your business to survive and thrive!
- But a "great looking site" is not enough for an effective site.
There are other broader / strategic goals as well.
- Such as Awareness, Mind Share, Market Share, Repeat Visits / Purchases.

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FIRST, SOME PERSPECTIVE!

As we take this recipe analogy, it is useful to think of 2 aspects:

First, let's think about the difference between Chefs and Cooks.
- Creating new recipes for specific needs/goals vs. following standard recipes.
- Creativity and New Solutions versus Production and Efficiency.
For a food item, how much focus / effort on packaging vs. the food itself?!
- Do you see how that decision could affect one-time-trials versus repeat purchases?

No ?

Yes?

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Building an EFFECTIVE Business Website

Key Ingredients :: Impact on Achieving Business Goals

LOOKS
STRUCTURE
EASE-OF-USE
CONTENT & FUNCTIONALITY
KEY MARKETING MESSAGES

More Visible

User Feedback Driven

More Tactical

Usual Focus

More Impact

Analysis + Insight driven

More Strategic

Winners' Focus

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WAIT!

Can you identify which ingredients are the drivers (or should be) and which ones are further downstream in the creation / production process?

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Building an EFFECTIVE Business Website

Instructions 1 :: Apply a smart & sound approach

Go beyond the usual focus on looks (graphic design / visual design)

First clarify your targets & goals to add substance before adding style!

Start with business planning and marketing analysis techniques to:
- Identify and understand your target customer segments and competition
  - A lot of valuable ideas / inputs can be gained from scanning your environment
- Best delegated to an outsider who can be objective (and blunt if necessary!)
  - Assess strengths & weaknesses - both yours and the competition's
  - Identify market and website opportunities from a fresh perspective

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JUST A SEC!

No really, are you actually doing that?!

When is the last time you took a close look at your competitors' sites - or talked to your customers / users?

Do you see the tremendous value of competitive analysis?

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Building an EFFECTIVE Business Website

Instructions 2 :: Strategy - the Why, What, Where before How!

Using the inputs and insights from Business / Marketing Analysis:

Apply marketing strategy and communications techniques to:
- Clarify and communicate compelling value + benefits for your target customers
  - so that they want to do business with you (and not your competitors!)
- Define and articulate key marketing messages creatively and effectively
  - About your products and services, range of offerings
  - About your brand (promise) and company (capabilities, credibility)

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CAN'T WE JUST SKIP TO THE "DESIGN"?!

Let's remember the goals / rewards we are pursuing!

Do you want a site that just looks slick / cool / pretty? — OR —
Do you want a useful, user-friendly and engaging site that furthers your business goals — AND — looks good as well?
Keeping your customers happy + providing a good return on your investment?!

No ?

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Building an EFFECTIVE Business Website

Instructions 3 :: Structure - the Menu before the Entrees!

Based on the Business & Marketing Analysis / Strategy decisions + guidelines:

Apply information architecture (site and data structuring) techniques to:
- Create a site structure that is appropriate for the scale and scope of your business / site
  - Your site menu / navigation presents this structure to the site users
  - Keep it manageable + understandable for your users — a muti-tiered structure
    with a short list of top-level items / categories with progressive detail in lower levels.
- The power of good content is amplified by the ease of finding it (aka Findability)
  - Employ various techniques to enable your users to find the content they are seeking
    - Good Site Menu, Search (within the site), Tag Clouds, Recent Posts, What's New
  - Define SEO Strategy (how users will find the site) - yes BEFORE content creation!

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Building an EFFECTIVE Business Website

Instructions 4 :: Now, cook up some well-presented dishes!

content

Utilizing the Site Structure and the Key Marketing Messages developed earlier:

Apply marketing communications and content creation techniques to:
- Create page layouts (wireframes) to effectively present the key messages / ideas
  - Engaging and effective layouts with well marked page, section, paragraph headers
- Weave the previously defined marketing messages into your content
  - Create high quality content to fit the page layouts (i.e. the right quantity as well!)
  - Text, explanatory / illustrative graphics (diagrams / images), video, animations, audio
  - Appropriate style & tone that are a good match for your business and site goals.