Internet Marketing Podcast, Web Usability Blog – Intuitive Websites

Website Design and Development

Designing Website home page, content, navigation, and look and feel with an emphasis on effective marketing as the central concern.

Action Plan

• Realize that your Website is always under construction and you need a process for continual updating and improvement.
• Involve a designer. Don’t let a purely technical person be in charge of design considerations.
• Make sure that your home page clearly describes your business function.
• User-test your navigation.
• Be sure to look at Website statistics and be responsive to trends and user likes/dislikes.
• Avoid long blocks of text. Users prefer short bulleted statements and will skip over large paragraphs.

Resources

• Joomla

 

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Add comment June 30th, 2006

Building a Web Marketing Team

Eight job positions (or hats) that are essential to a successful Website.

Action Plan

• Don’t wing it, set up your team to run a business.
• Put a hat on people in the 8 groups above
• Evaluate internal skills and outsourced skills
• When evaluating external skill sets determine if they are: Marketing, Design, Technology or Project Management

Resources

• Building A Web Team (Presentation from Dartmouth)
• Web Team Roles
• The Ideal Web Team (Part 1) (Part 2)

 

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2 comments June 20th, 2006

Building a House and Building a Website

There are many similarities between building a house and building a Website. An effective Web marketing plan is very much like the process of building and maintaining a new home. However, Web marketers and developers do not always follow these guidelines.

Here is how they are alike. You must decide where your house is located and where your Website is hosted. You must also develop a blue print and floor plans for your new house, just as you develop a site map for your Website navigation. Budgets and staff are assigned to their various specialties and many details are covered whether it is a house or a Website you are building. The house is decorated and furnishings are added along with landscaping. Graphics, photos and other visual elements are added to a Website. A house must have a solid foundation and effective heating, water and electrical systems. A Website needs a solid technical foundation and fluid interactive tools.

A house must be maintained and improved upon or it falls apart over time. Websites also must constantly be evaluated and updated and maintained or they to will deteriorate over time. This is where many Websites fall short. Be proud of your Website, as you are with your home and keep it updated and fresh. Keep in mind that your Website will have many more visitors than your house!

At some point the site, and your house, will be in need of an overhaul to keep them fresh and interesting to you and visitors. Here is where a house and a Website differ; a Website needs a new look at least every one or two years and most houses can go longer than that. The problem is many people let their Websites go much longer than they should. This is usually the case because people do not see their Website as a fluid and evolving process. Even though your new home’s construction will finally end, a Website is always under construction!

Tom

Add comment June 7th, 2006

The Importance of the Web Visitor

Without web visitors, there’s no point in having a Website! This podcast helps you stay focused on the VIP’s, the users of your web site.

Action Plan

• Develop an outline of your ideal Website visitor, target market
• Develop a best-case user path on your site based on what you know they want
• Get top of the line analytics to track user paths
• Do market research (listen to our podcast)

Resources

• Getting Inside the Head of the Web User (article)
• Don’t Make Me Think (book)
• Intuitive Websites Usability
• Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research (book)
• Stanford Web Credibility Research

 

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Add comment June 2nd, 2006