Website Basics

Joe and Mary Doe were doing well with their Crocus Growing Camp and Weight Loss Center. Based on their success they knew they would become millionaires if they had their very own web site www.crocusfocus.com. So they contacted one of the gazillion on-line companies that offer to "build your site and host it free".

As promised, within days CrocusFoucus.com was floating proudly in cyberspace. Joe and Mary braced themselves for the overwhelming response they knew would come….and they waited, and they waited. Soon they were joining the throngs of merchants, manufacturers and service agencies who gather to grumble about the "false Internet hype".

Actually poor old CrocusFocus' web-chances were doomed from the get go. Why? Because Joe and Mary willfully jumped off the highest cyber cliff without a parachute.

Launching a web site is not something a business should do on a whim. Throwing a company's heart and soul at the so called "experts", then sitting back to reap the rewards just doesn't work. The Internet is a new frontier with new rules that most small business owners simply don't understand. Yet, they sense the tremendous opportunity. So instead of taking the time to do their homework they delegate the task to someone they haven't even met.

As with all business decisions, Joe and Mary should have started by asking themselves some basic questions:

• Why do we need a web site?
• Will we sell our products or services on-line?
• Will the products or services include real-time downloads?
• Will we collect data from our site visitors?
• Do we need to test new products or services and receive feedback?
• Do we need to contact our sales staff or remote employees?
• Would it benefit our customers if they could reach us 24 hours a day?
• Does our competition have a web site? What are they doing with theirs? Selling direct? Offering free consultation? Providing information? How are they getting people to come to their sites? How are they getting them to come back?
• What do we expect to gain from having a site?
• How will we measure that gain?
• How much are we willing to spend to get the site developed?
• How will we advertise our site? Banner Ads? Newsgroups? Affiliate Programs? E-zines? Off-line Advertising?
• How much can we afford to spend on Search Engine placement?

The next set of questions our blooming-weight-loss-gurus should have asked themselves is, "Who is going to develop and design our site? Why them? What are their credentials? Have they developed sites like the one we want before? What were the results? Will they strive to get our site ranked in the top 30 listings of at least 5 major Search Engines?"

As you might expect web design skills come on a sliding scale. If you just want to scan the photos from your brochure and place them onto a web page so you can inform the world about your All Natural Daffodil Derivative Hay Fever Remedy--Hatchooy you will do fine with a HTML-webmaster.

If however, you want an on-line store that accepts Crocus orders via credit card, your site will require a designer who knows CGI scripting. And if you want some dancing posies that look just like the ones on your logo doing the cha-cha, find someone who is a Java scripting fool. Don't worry, they are out there. Before you settle on a webmaster, do some checking. Be sure to review samples of their work, ask for references and check with each and every company on the list. Choose with the same care you would use to find a doctor, lawyer or auto mechanic.

Let's get back to our forlorn Joe and Mary Doe. Say they did all of the above. They assessed, re-addressed and completely re-worded their site. Now it is full of great graphics, incredible copy, an alluring on-line store with a free gift wrapping service and prepaid freight. They have developed an informative bulb-of-the-month newsletter to hook their visitors back into the site. Yet, still, there is little response. Most of their emails are from nefarious spammers who promise them lavish riches for stuffing envelopes-not from customers. Now what's wrong?

Four little words can explain the problem: "Poor Search Engine Rankings". This is a field of study that is vast, ever changing and crucially important to anyone striving to succeed at e-commerce.

Each of the Search Engines i.e. Alta Vista, HotBot, Goggle, Infoseek, Excite etc have what they call, "search algorithms". These are top secret formulas the Search Engine folks feed their spider, thereby telling it how to find and log site information. A spider is an unmanned program operated by a Search Engine that surfs the Web just like you would. Except it doesn't get frustrated, tired or need coffee. As it visits each site, it records each and every word. Then it notes each link to other sites. When it does it bops off to check each of those pages. Pretty amazing since there are now an estimated 800 million pages of info out there.

The spider's info is recorded in a huge master data base so when you type the word "daffodils" into its Search Engine's search box, up comes a listing of all the sites that arachnid recorded with the word "daffodils" on them-- In the order of importance directed by the algorithm. Oh what webs we weave! If CrocusFocus isn't ranked in the top 30 listings most cyber-travelers will never find it.

Next month I will explain more about the ins and outs of Search Engine Rankings. In the meantime, let me give you this all important tip: be very cautious of the web designer who doesn't ask this question early on in your first conversation, "What are the words that best describe your business?" S/he will be looking for your "keywords" or the spider bait for your site.