Transcript sba web presentationh

Web Site Design and Evaluation
1999 Women’s Small Business
Conference
Patricia Egen
[email protected]
www.egenconsulting.com
So You Want to Build a Web Site
• Step one.
– Plan, plan and then plan some more
– Get your domain name! Now!
– Questions to ask yourself
• Understand your audience
– What do you want to say
– What do you want your customers to “hear”
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What do you want to spend
How often will the information be updated
Do you have technical resources available
Where will the site “live”
Design Tips
• KISS* rules
– Keep it simple
• Graphics are pretty; they are also slow
– Design for the lowest common denominator
• Not everyone has a fast Internet connection
• Not everyone has a large or fancy monitor
• Some people have trouble seeing certain colors
– Keep your site interesting
• Add something that changes, like a newsletter, or
“favorite site of the month” to draw return visits
* Keep it simple, silly
More Design tips
• Don’t cram everything on the first page
– Add “links” to other pages on your site
– Draw them in. If you build it they will follow
• (and follow, and follow).
– Add links to other favorite places. Link pages
are interesting to people searching the Web
• Warning - put this at the end of your site or you’ll
lose people as they wander off to your favorite sites
too.
Top Ten Design Mistakes
• Slow download times
• People hit Escape quickly rather than wait.
• Frames
• Oh, how I hate frames!
• Outdated Information
• Very unprofessional
• Sends a strong “we don’t care” message
• Bleeding edge technology
• Shockwave, sound, movies
Top Ten Design Mistakes - part 2
• Scrolling text and animations
• Bouncing balls and banners
• Complex URL’s
• If they are too long, people won’t bother typing them in
• Orphan Pages
• Where do I go now? How do I get back.
• Scrolling Navigation pages
• People generally scan, not read
• What they see in the immediate area is what they go
away with.
Top Ten Design Mistakes - part 3
• Lack of Navigation support
• Again, which page am I on; where’s the home page
• Every page should have links to your other pages
• Try to keep them in the same location.
• Non-standard link colors
• Not a biggy, but annoying to seasoned surfers
www.useit.com/alertbox
Where to Start
• HTML literacy no longer a pre-requisite
– Both Internet Explorer and Netscape come with
tools to help you design and compose pages
– Tools like Publisher step you through web
design using Wizards and design tools
– Microsoft Office products (especially Office
2000) save files as HTML and are designed
with the Web in mind
• You can even use an Excel spreadsheet as an HTML
page.
After you build it
• Once you have built your site, make sure
people can find it.
• Use services that post your site on search
engines
– Some are free; most have a nominal fee
• Make sure you put information in the page
titles that send your message clearly
Tips to help people find you
• Title keywords
• Quality Printing vs Acme
– Does the searcher know who Acme is?
• Meta tags
– description
• “The best Print Shop in Chattnooga”
– keywords
• printing, brochures, mailings, copy setup, full color
press Chattanooga quick
Use an evolutionary approach
• Start simple
– Use a free Web site service like Angelfire, Excite, Yahoo,
AOL,etc.
– Most services have wizards that step you through the design
of a web site
– Use your ISP, like CDC, Virtual Chattanooga
– Some ISP’s will set up a root domain name for a set price
– This means people find you by your company name not by the
name of the Hosting ISP
• Example: www.acmeprint.com versus
www.cdc.net/~acmeprint
– Grow your site slowly
– Use “Under Construction” to let people know it’s coming
How did I start?
• Design
– Used Frontpage to get a feel
– Researched what other people did
– Searched the Web for advice
– Switched to Publisher and now use Netscape Composer
or an editor and actually code in HTML
• Set up a free website on Angelfire
– Did my family home page first, then set up business
page
• Submitted my sites to a Search company
What’s happening now
• Run my own server
– www.egenconsulting.com
• Continually updating my site
• Get an average of two business leads a
month
– Server is hit on the average of 10 times per day
• Still learning every day
Places to go for information
• Web Design sites
• Create a successful website:
– http://www.hooked.net/~larrylin/web.htm
• CNET Web design tips:
– http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/Design/
• Search engine Submittal companies
• Submit-It.com
– http://submit-it.com/subopt.htm
• There are literally hundreds of companies
– Go to these sites and search there
• http://www.looksmart.com
• http://www.about.com
More places to go
• Free web site organizations
– Free Sites Network
• http://www.fsn.net
– Homepage.com
• http://www.homepage.com
– Bizland
• http://www.bizland.com
– 411Web
• http://www.411web.com
A Bit of Whimsy
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"Everything you know is wrong." > Inside Macintosh, 1984
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"Colored or textured backgrounds, weirdly colored text or links, and a
preoccupation with appearance over content are sure signs of a 'first generation'
web site." > Pablo PigCasso
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Although art can be created with a chainsaw, this is hardly a justification for
giving every would-be artist a chainsaw.” > Vincent van Gui
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"In a successful advertisement it's the graphics that grab you, but it's the text that
does the selling." > Pablo PigCasso
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"Before you put a really dark background on your web page, ask yourself this:
Why is it so much harder to drive at night than in the daytime?" > Henri de
Toulouse-LaTech
From the Art and Zen of Web Sites (www.tlc-systems.com)
Questions and a quick demo
• Questions?
• This Powerpoint presentation can
be found at the following URL:
– http://www.egenconsulting.com/egcforms.nsf
• It will be under General Presentations