A Web presence is a dynamic proposition. Don’t be content to rest on your laurels. As the world changes, so must your Web site.

1) Understand the Web.

As a preliminary introduction, you can learn about the terminology and technology related to the World Wide Web through books and articles. If you stop there, however, you will find yourself with plenty of analogies but little real understanding of what the Web is about. It’s by getting behind a keyboard and visiting site after site that you’ll eventually be able to move past the metaphors.

Check out the popular sites people are talking about, check out obscure sites, and don’t forget to pay special attention to your competitors’ sites and those in your industry or parallel fields. Take generous notes and record general impressions –what you like and don’t like, plus any problems you see in the site. Roger C. Parker’s Guide to Web Content and Design is packed with helpful worksheets including a Web site impression sheet that’s perfect for this exercise.

Armed with a working knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the medium, you’ll begin to see how a presence on the Web can fit into your overall strategy. For instance, the Web may only reach a narrow segment of your market, but can potentially deliver a greater depth of relationship within that segment.

2) Develop your definition of Web success.

Obviously, your purpose for being on the Web will depend on who you are. An individual hobbyist may be satisfied with just seeing the counter rise or by collecting award icons for his or her home page. A nonprofit or religious organization may want to attract donors or simply proclaim a message. Purposes for a business Web site include building brand awareness, generating prospects, selling products or services, selling advertisements, supporting customers, attracting investors, recruiting employees and garnering press attention.

Match what you’ve learned about the Web with what you know about your business to come up with your own definition of success. After all, yours is the only definition that should count. Keep in mind that your Web-site goals eventually need to boil down to specific, measurable parameters. Some examples of realistic goals include number of visitors or registrants, online sales, number of qualified leads, advertising revenue, number of media mentions and a measurable reduction in customer-support costs.

Closely related to goal setting is the identification of your target audience. Who needs to show up at the site to help you reach your goals? To the extent possible, define the age range, interests, income, gender and any other relevant characteristics of the person to whom you are aiming your efforts. It’s also important to predict the level of technological savvy and attention span of your audience. This will feed into key decisions about the makeup of your site.

With initial goals in place, a reality check is in order. Do the demographics indicate that your target audience can be found on the Web? What if you have a product that is difficult to ship? In that case online sales would be a foolish goal; you may want to use a Web site to attract investors instead. Sometimes, goals must be set in phases. For example, getting hits is essential if your ultimate goal is to generate advertising revenue. Similarly, gaining repeat visitors tends to build product loyalty, which increases sales over the long term.

A review of available resources is another important part of this early reality check. Budget level, schedule constraints, the size of your work force and skills inventory can’t be ignored if you want to set realistic goals.

3) Plan your site with proper emphasis on content, design and technology.

On the Web, there is no such thing as a prestigious address (assuming you have your own domain name). There is no mahogany furniture, designer suit or embossed business card to impress your visitors or competitors. The good news is that the Web is a level playing field where any site can potentially project the high production values that contribute to success. The information available at the site, the look and feel of the site and the technology behind the site must all be relevant, up to date and of high quality to achieve this. In addition, content, design and technology should work together towards the goals you’ve established.

Content simply refers to the information and activities made available at a site. Effective content is carefully planned to be relevant and appealing to the target audience. This typically includes product specifications as well as tips and tricks, lists of links, technical support data, articles of interest, games and so on.

It never fails to surprise me that content appears to have been an afterthought for many sites. This is a fatal mistake because it is content that builds the bridge between a Web site’s sponsor and its visitors.

Existing text almost always requires some massaging before it can become effective Web content. This could include breaking it up into logical stand-alone chunks and editing it to be search-engine savvy. In some cases, material for the Web should be presented in a different tone than your current print materials. Land’s End’s site, for example, chose to use a more relaxed style of writing on its Web site than in its popular print catalog, perhaps in light of demographic factors.

There is no excuse for missing information in a medium without space constraints. In particular, don’t overlook the obvious such as mailing address, phone numbers, store locations and hours. Obviously, content needs to be accurate and free of typographical or grammatical errors, too.

The organization of your material is nearly as important as the material itself. Diagrams, flow charts and story boards are helpful to plan where the various information should go.

Ideally, your visitors should be able to reach any information on your site in three clicks or less. Some site building teams go so far as to establish an objective for each page. Such details as naming files and titling pages are very important for establishing structure and in helping search engines locate your site. A look at the goals you’ve designated should help immensely when brainstorming about your site’s content. For instance, Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, uses printable coupons to support sales at its retail storefronts. This not only gives people a reason to visit the site, but as coupons are redeemed, Hobby Lobby has a built-in way to trace results.

As another example, some real estate sites feature loan calculators, a practice that tends to decrease the number of unqualified leads generated from the site.

The design aspects of Web site building have gotten a lot of attention, and rightfully so. It is difficult for even the most compelling content or impressive technology to shine from within a poorly designed site. Ease of use, which encompasses loading speed, navigation and readability, is frequently cited as the most important Web-design objective. A site’s design serves many other functions that aid in communication, as well, such as projecting the proper image, conveying emphasis, unifying content and facilitating future updates.

All the basic tenets of design in general must be honored, as well as some Web-specific considerations such as the optimization of graphics, animation and sound. Browser and platform inconsistencies make Web design particularly challenging.

Web sites like D.J. Quad’s and books like the excellent Non-Designers Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett explain hundreds of factors that play into page design. If you plan to tackle Web-site design yourself, be sure to avail yourself of these resources. As with print publications, it is often the seemingly insignificant details that separate effective from ineffective design.

You’ll have many decisions to make regarding what technologies you use, including browser extensions like frames, Java, database integration and beyond. Ideally the technology you choose to use behind your site will work so flawlessly and be so well integrated, it will not call attention to itself–unless that is your goal.

Your budget will typically dictate the upper limit of technology you can implement. The expectations and limitations of your target audience, however, should be a strong influence on your final decisions. You will lose some portion of your viewership, for instance, if you require a particular platform, browser version or plug- in. The subset of your qualified visitors who represent the lowest common denominator should be able to participate, even if that means providing a separate path for them.

The interactivity you plan to include in your site could be classified as content, design or technology, as it shares aspects with each. Interaction with your visitors can be as simple as the obligatory email link or as complicated as custom pages generated on the fly. In between lie such things as the guest book, games, greeting cards, bulletin boards and chat rooms. Remember that you will always increase participation by offering incentives. Reference.com, for instance, offers searches for free, and they include a service where visitors who register can store their queries to use on repeat visits. Perhaps the most important interactivity decision is whether or not your site will have online sales capability, and at what level of security.

4) Execute your plans with appropriate people, hardware and software.

You will ultimately need to decide either to produce all or part of the Web site itself or to outsource various aspects. An early decision is whether to have your own server or take advantage of virtual hosting from an outside provider. These decisions are neither trivial, nor permanent.

Ideally, members of your site- building team will be working within their areas of expertise, led by someone who understands the big picture. It takes a huge set of skills to produce an effective Web site, yet many organizations have tried to accomplish this with just one or two of their most talented people. Companies that would never assign a programmer to write the copy for a sales brochure nonetheless leave many of them responsible for writing Web content. Increasingly, organizations are recognizing the importance of involving people in many disciplines, especially those most closely associated with the goals of the site. For instance, marketing people should be involved in developing sites with marketing- oriented objectives, from domain- name selection through production.

5) Commit to the site’s future.

Future commitments include promotion, follow-up, maintenance, evaluation and evolution.

No matter how great a site is, it is difficult to categorize it as a success if no one ever visits it. A strategy to drive people to your site is critical. At a minimum, this means adding your URL to all outgoing correspondence, promotional material and advertisements. Toyota began doing this and eventually found that its Web site was bringing in more leads than its toll-free number.

Registering with the major search sites is another essential. Further, purchasing banner ads on relevant high-traffic sites and exchanging links with complementary sites are other strategies worth consideration.

All customers that contact you expect response. Those that contact you via the Web expect quick response. Yet many companies post elaborate sites on the Web, complete with handy email links and electronic comment forms, only to send that hard won customer feedback into an apparent black hole. Never invite any interaction you don’t intend to acknowledge. If you haven’t got the resources to handle customer email promptly –promptly is approximately 24 hours in computer time–then your site isn’t ready to go online.

A site that never changes seems abandoned and that can have quite negative consequences. One magazine, for instance, had to fight off rumors that it had ceased publication after contractual disputes left its site unchanged for months. Keep in mind that even if your information doesn’t go out of date, external links will, making maintenance a persistent problem requiring resources available on a regular basis.

Plan to add, change or rotate content continually, as this is what drives repeat visitors. If your site plans call for interactive message boards, then your visitors can provide frequently changing content for you. Of course, message boards require a high level of vigilance from those assigned to maintain them.

You can find out a lot about your site simply by visiting it. Use an anonymous email address to interact at your site and gauge responsiveness to feedback. Another good practice is to periodically perform keyword searches at the major search sites to see how easy or hard it is to find your site. Everything that happens on your Web site is probably tracked and logged and it would be foolish not to take advantage of that fact. Compile registration data, study customer feedback and mine hit logs to determine how your Web-site performance is stacking up to your goals.

Change is a given on the Web. It is a key benefit in that change is simple to accomplish, and a necessity in that the visitor expects a steady flow of juicy new information. Some changes you need to make will become evident in the course of evaluating your existing site.

No matter how much homework you do before posting your Web site, chances are you will learn a whole lot more after it’s up. Vince Emery, in his classic book, How to Grow Your Business on the Net, puts it this way, "The process of marketing on the Net will change your ideas about how you want to use the Net, so expect to make changes."

While those little animated construction icons don’t usually signal a successful Web site, in a sense, every Web site must stay under construction and pay special attention to the five pillars of success to be successful.

Branding on the Web

Technically, a product brand consists of a name, symbol, design or some combination thereof that represents a product or product line. In practice, a successful brand identity will link an attribute with the product, and the product to the category, in the mind of the consumer. For instance, Warner- Lambert wants you to think of relief when you think of Rolaids, and to think of Rolaids when you think of antacids.

For some newer companies like Nike, the traditional approach is considered too limiting. Instead, the strategy is to connect an attitude, rather than an attribute, with the brand. Any new medium that emerges forces a re- evaluation of branding paradigms. The World Wide Web is no exception.

Moving a traditional brand into cyberspace helps a computer user use the Web to deepen relationships with the customer. Without the constraints of a static print ad or a 30-second broadcast spot, you have the luxury of conveying substance, and the chance to make yourself useful. The Crayola Web site, for instance, not only gives kids plenty of ways to color their world, but also tells parents what to do after melting a crayon into a dryer load of clothes.

Banner ads are another way to extend your brand into cyberspace. A 1996 HotWired study suggests that viewing a banner ad on the Web improves the brand’s image in consumers’ minds, whether or not they clicked through to the company’s own Web site. Advertising experts are quick to distinguish between ads that are intended to build your brand and those that lead directly to sales. Don’t expect the same ad to do both.

For a product born and raised on the Web, brand identity becomes an especially critical asset. After all, there is no "convenient to the interstate" location to give you the edge. Web companies are catching on fast to the importance of branding strategy, going so far as to hire brand managers away from consumer product giants like Clorox and Procter and Gamble.

Typically, the first on the scene, or "first mover" in marketing parlance, has a big advantage. Yahoo! and Amazon.com are two classic examples. If you are not so fortunate, a desirable brand can still be built. It’ll take consistently high quality service, though, not just cool graphics and a catchy slogan. Be aware that customers will have even greater security concerns when dealing with an unknown. Counter that by partnering with established brands and offering generous guarantees.

Another challenge for Web- based companies is to establish a brand before the traditional players stake their claim in cyberspace. Amazon.com, for instance, seems to be holding its own despite the onslaught from book barons Barnes and Noble and Borders. Again, the key to competing is good service. With the competition growing by leaps and bounds, you should adopt a retail market attitude on your Web site. You may be able to gain or hold ground simply by responding to email, something that traditional companies seem to have a difficult time with. –K.H.