Business focused website design
Supporting Documents:
Methodology
for Website Design
Website
Design Process Diagram
Five
Requirements for a Successful Website
If you search randomly through the web you will begin to notice
something interesting. Just about every site you visit is an e-commerce
site. They are all selling something and they all have a shopping cart.
They all can take orders over the web. If you are a small business and you
don't have an e-commerce site this should give you pause. Annual web sales
are growing at double digit rates with no indication of slowing down. Is
your physical business doing that well over the last few years?
The Internet landscape is now inundated with e-commerce sites.
Unfortunately there is little to distinguish one from another. E-commerce
functionality may be becoming the norm but most sites have a long way to
go to set themselves apart. If you want to succeed in the new Internet
gold rush you need to focus your website design on basic business
principals.
How do you design a business focused website? Simple, you start with
business basics.
- Define your business goals
- Establish your competitive advantages and disadvantages (on the web)
- Delineate your customer's expectations
- Define your Internet goals
- Develop an Internet strategy
- Design a web site that implements your strategy
Many small businesses don't think in these terms. However, if you
really want to make your business web site successful you need to.
Competition on the web is much greater than it is on your block. Next year
it will be even greater.
Define your business goals: There is a lot of easily accessible
information and books on defining your business goals. However, most small
businesses do not have a problem with the process. "Make a
profit" generally covers it nicely. If you decide to go further there
are a few things you want to be cautious of.
You don't want goals that are too vague. The goal has to be measurable.
"Making a profit" is measurable but it may not be succinct
enough because it doesn't define what "profit" is. If you earn a
buck-fifty, would you consider that ample profit? A better goal would be
to "make a monthly profit of $1000.00" or "maintain a
profit margin of 10% of gross sales". You don't want to set your goal
at "sell $100,000.00 per month" because selling $100,000.00 per
month does not guarantee a profit. The more precise your goal the easier
it is to measure whether or not you are reaching your goals.
You don't want to define strategies or tactics instead of goals.
Strategies are your plans for meeting your goals. Tactics define are the
things you will do to act on your strategies. "Increase Internet
sales to $5000.00 per month" should not be a business goal. It is a
strategy to help you meet your business goal. "Offer discounts for
Internet purchases" should not be a business goal. It is a tactic.
(Don't you love the war terms?)
Establish your competitive advantages and disadvantages: What
are you good at? The answer is not reasonable price, excellent customer
service and / or fast delivery. Today (especially over the Internet) these
are a given. Everyone has them. You need to look at the "value
added" services you provide. What do you do better than your
competition? What do you do worse than your competition?
Delineate your customer's expectations: Customer
expectation today are high. They expect excellent service, quick response
and reasonable prices from everyone they do business with. The difference
between buying from you or from your competitor is based on those
"value added" services that are provided. If your customer
doesn't like driving to town to shop, having an Internet site to buy from
is an added value that make make the difference.
Define your Internet goals: One strategy for helping you meet
your business goals is using the Internet. You will need to clearly define
the goals for your Internet site. These goals should be aligned with your
business goals. Alignment is a cause and effect relationship. This means
that if your site goal is achieved the probability is high that it
will positively affect your business goal. The higher the probability the
closer the alignment between goals.
Define your Internet strategies: Your Internet strategies define
how you will meet your goals. A strategy may be "provide the biggest
selection" or "provide the easiest web ordering process".
In other words, "our goal is to create (a dollar amount) in sales on
the web and we will do that by offering the widest selection of products
available anywhere." Your strategies will almost always come as
a result of looking at your competitive advantages and disadvantages
compared with customer expectations.
Now you can start designing your business website. And
you can rest assured that your design is focused on your business because
we started with your business goals and worked toward the business web
site design. Your strategies should drive your site graphic, navigation
and feature development.
If you are not comfortable with this process either do a little reading
or select a web designer that understands this part of the business
website design process. They will be able to help you through the process
and make sure that the web site you end up with is focused on your
business goals.
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