Tips for a Professional Website Part1. By Dennis McDonough. Having a web site is now essential for business. What to Look For in a Good Design Team …
Tips for a Professional Website Part1 By Dennis McDonough Having a web site is now essential for business Without a web site, you have one less way to reach a huge number of potential customers who are looking for you And an effective, professionallydesigned web site is your key to reaching those customers You are a professional You use professional services and have high expectations of them So it makes sense to hire a professional web site design team who has experience and a variety of sites to prove it and who can: work effectively with you in developing a web site, understand your needs and goals, optimize site search capabilities, and make your site stand out from all the others all while working within your budget What to Look For in a Good Design Team Experience We all probably know someone whose sons friend knows someone down the street who is studying web design at night, and who would love to pick up a few extra dollars doing a web site for you But he or she may not have the demonstrated experience necessary to create an effective web site You want a professional web design team that has a range of experience, from basic text-andpicture sites to e-commerce applications
Creativity There are several designers who use canned web sites where they simply dump information into pre-formatted templates so that every site they create looks vaguely similar A good web design team knows that in order to be effective and work for you, your site must be like no other That doesnt mean they come up with bizarre designs just to catch a visitors attention It means they can work with you to develop a site that is distinctly yours It also means they have the design tools available to immediately execute any changes you have and help you expand your site as your needs change Efficiency You want to find a web design team that can work efficiently for you, help you set a budget, and work to make your web site cost-effective You do not want to work with a design team that takes a kitchen sink approach to site design, overcharging you for filling your site with animations, pictures strewn all about the site in inappropriate places, and tons of unnecessary downloads You do want to work with a team that discusses your needs in advance and builds a site that reflects them In short, you want to work with a team that will not waste your money What to Ask Design Team
Candidates Once you begin to shop around for a design team using the guidelines above, ask the following questions to those who want your business: What is your strongest skill and how will you use it for me? If the web design shop is great with photographs, then they will probably emphasize those on your site If they are good with writing, then
your site will have clear, snappy text Again, you have to keep in mind your own web site needs are when you ask this What is the web site design process? Will there be interaction between you and the web design team, or will they just know what you need and start making a site? Will they keep you updated regularly and present site elements for your approval, or unveil the complete web site when it is ready? What will it take to achieve your goals? Remember that frequent feedback is best, so you may want to go with the team that interacts with you every step of the way What has been your biggest site design challenge? Rarely does a site design process run smoothly, and there are problems encountered every step of the way By asking this you want to see how the design firm solves problems Who knows? Designing a site for your business may be
the most challenging task they ever encounter If so, and you have a satisfactory answer to this question, then you will have confidence that they will meet the challenges and develop a fine site for you How can you optimize my website to make it searchable? If someone is looking for your business on the Internet, they will use a search engine such as Google, Alta Vista, or Ask Jeeves among others Your web design team should have every page on your site set so that your company comes up in a high position on a search engines results page If they cannot explain how they can do that, you probably will not want to use them If they can explain, get them to show you how by using some of their own work as an example How can my website grow and evolve? As with most things you will find some success and some failures with different ideas on your web site Someone may think a chat room is just the thing your customers are wanting, but 6 months later you have found that no one is using it How will changes affect the design and layout of your site? Can the menus grow easily? Will you be able to match the look and feel with new features? Other questions you might ask: How many people work for
you? Does each member of your team complete a task for the site, or does one person do everything for a site? What awards have your sites won? What brought you into this business in the first place? What keeps you in it? Once you have selected a web site design team, you must keep in touch with them throughout the site development process If someone on the team calls with a question or wants you to see something they have done, return the call as soon as possible Keep the feedback channels open and work with the developer to get the web site you want And once the site is ready and working for you, keep in touch with the design team so you can both anticipate changes and discuss enhancements Follow these guidelines to create and maintain a happy relationship with your design team, and get a professionally-designed web site that works for you
More Tips for a Professional Website Part2 By Dennis McDonough Websites: there are good ones, bad ones, and flat-out ugly ones Which one is yours? Having a web site is now essential for business, but it does no good if your website suffers from bad or amateurish design While the computer technology operating behind the Web may intimidate some
people, they still have eyes that can ache if the web site theyre viewing has hot pink text on a red background Likewise, they will also leave a website if the design prohibits them from finding the information for which they are looking In short, you cant draw and keep customers with a badly-designed web site Last issue we discussed what you should look for when selecting a professional web design team This time, well discuss some of what actually constitutes good and bad design The distinction is not as subjective as it might seem There is room on the Internet for all kinds of artistic expression, but it also serves the needs of business-to-business or business-to-customer communication Basic business communication rules apply to web sites the same as they do to brochures or even business letters Lets put it another way: Would you send out a letter in pink text printed on red paper? Dont commit the same error in thinking about your web site design Listen to the Pros Your professional web site design team has the tools and expertise to create an efficient web site that will be easy to find, easy to navigate, look good, and will contain all the information you need to have
available in order for people to do business with you However, they can only help you realize your vision for a web site if you have clear idea of what constitutes good web design and information flow But just as some people have a tin ear for music, some have a tin eye for design, and there is an abundance of sites on the web that are designed by people with tin eyes Take a look at this example
After your eyeballs recuperate from the garish color scheme, what else do you notice? There are two tacky pictures scaled down too far that it breaks up the lines in them, text that gives no information, and there are no links to information about the services they offer While the picture above is from a fictitious web site, there are plenty of sites that look like this Notice, too, the use of frames on the page the Welcome to and We Offer portions Frames and framesets are generally considered bad design both aesthetically and in searchability Google and the other Internet search engines cannot locate information in frames on a web page So if that is where you have your club name, address, or services, chances are you will not be able to be found with a search engine Now take a look at
this one
It is obviously better than the previous one Note the cleaner layout, the presentation of information, the navigation buttons along the left margin, and the logo across the top, and the stock photos used in the right-hand margin are less tacky than the ones used in the previous example plus, you can actually see them By no means is this the ideal layout for a site, but it is more effective and quite a bit betterlooking than the other one What is more important, however, is that there is actual informative text in the body of the page, which will make it easier for search engines to locate and help your potential customers find you Think Clean, Be Clean, Be Professional Even with an effective basic web site design, there is still the temptation to cram information on each page of the site text, pictures, links, buttons, and more Part of avoiding the tin eye syndrome is to think in terms of the effective use of space Again, think of basic business communication Is it easier to read a lengthy single-page business letter that has no margins, or a two-page letter that has proper margins and line spacing? Sure, the two-page letter may be longer, but it is easier to read It is
cleaner, easier on the readers eyes, and it gets the message through more effectively A professional web site design team knows about proper, efficient page layout and can help you shape your own vision about how your 
web site should look Remember that your web site is a reflection of your business and, in that respect, a reflection of you as a professional
In the past decade we have watched the World Wide Web grow from being interesting visual toy to an essential tool for doing business and communicating In addition, we have watched web sites become more informative, graphically interesting, and useful Work with your web site development team to make sure your web site is, too
Tips for a Professional Website Part3 By Dennis McDonough Your business is all about body motion, from dozens of people in a step aerobics class, to a single individual lifting weights Your customers hope those kinds of motions will yield some beneficial results, namely toned muscles and a better sense of well-being So since your business is all about motion, why not include some of it on your web site? By now you have probably heard about streaming video for the web, and you have probably seen some of it,
too When used properly, streaming video is a highly-effective as a web site element However, there can be lots of thorny and expensive issues to solve when setting it up on your website for example, the video file must compressed so that your site visitors can view it properly, plus there is the cost of actually producing professional video that may make using it a little problematic Fortunately, there is a cost-effective way around the expense and hassle of putting motion on your web site Not Just a Flash in the Pan One extremely cost-effective way to create motion for your web site is to use movie files created by Macromedia Flash In its early days, Flash was used strictly for creating animation of text, pictures, and other elements for web sites Over the years, it has grown into a program that can also incorporate video One of the benefits of using Flash movies is that it requires no additional computer hardware to run The only requirement is that your site visitors must have the Flash plug-in installed on their machines It is free and available from wwwmacromediacom You will, however, need to have a notice on your web site that portions of it will require the Flash plug-in You
can have Flash presentations of:
A Virtual Tour of your Club Put a collection of pictures of your club into an interactive presentation so that your site visitors can get a visual overview of all the equipment and services you provide An Exercise of the Week or Month Have one of your instructors perform a certain exercise for example, concentration curls as pictures are taken of each step Your Flash design team can run those pictures together to create an animation of the exercise You can change this weekly or monthly Existing Video If you already have a professionally-made video of your club or of a certain class, you can have a Flash presentation that plays it To do that you will first need to convert the video into one of two computer video formats: Apple QuickTime or Windows Media Your web site design team can do that for you Once the video is converted, it is imported into the Flash program, then converted into a Flash movie ready for viewing on your web site It is cost- and time-effective in that you do not need any additional video streaming equipment As long as your site visitor has the Flash plug-in, the video will play Furthermore, no matter which type of presentation
you have, you have the option of letting a Flash presentation run on its own or require user interaction eg, click a button to move to the next part Whats more, Flash has the capability to include some slick coding features which you can use to create such elements as target heart rate and body mass index calculators All your visitors have to do is enter figures, click a button, and get a result This is different from normal web-based calculators in that you can have animations that accompany it Your web site design team can offer you many other uses for Flash to enhance your site visitors experiences But like everything else we have discussed over the past few months, you should use these elements in moderation However, with lots of planning, organization, and creativity, you can add memorable, effective motion to your web site
Dennis McDonough is President of BIT Concepts Dennis can be contacted at 502-587-5940 ext 202 or by email at dmcdon@bit-conceptscom or through the website at wwwbit-conceptscom
Figure 1 This is an interactive target heart rate calculator programmed in Flash The user enters figures, clicks Calculate, then gets the target heart rate From here, the user can
view recommended exercises which can also be animated, reset the calculator, or go to a different one
Tips for a Professional Website Part4 By Dennis McDonough Moderation is a fatal thing: nothing succeeds like excess –Oscar Wilde Wilde didnt live long enough to see the World Wide Web –Dennis McDonough For the past several issues we have discussed a number of issues that deal with your presence on the Internet: how to select a professional web design team, what to avoid in a design, and how to optimize your site so that customers using search engines can locate it Overall, we have stated that your web site is a form of business communication and needs to be treated as such, even though you can do much more in a web site than you can in a business letter or even a brochure However, you must remember that all the elements that make up a web site graphics, animation, text, etc must be used in moderation if you want to make your site accessible to your customers and keep them there There are too many web sites that are junked up with unnecessary, slow-loading animations, graphics that are not sized correctly, text that fills a page from margin to margin, and other elements that
would have made Oscar Wilde change his mind about the success of excess Here are several common web site elements that are sometimes used excessively along with suggestions on how to use them effectively: Text While good graphics may be key to a nice-looking site, basic text still provides the information you wish to communicate and, equally important, what your customers and search engines will look for Keep in mind, though, that too much text on a page can work against you A good rule of thumb is: if your user has to scroll down five times to read the text on a page, you probably have too much Break text up and have it appear on other pages, if necessary Better yet, just be concise with your writing so text amount wont be an issue Also, consider the size and color of your text Dont cheat the five-scroll rule of thumb by making your text too small to read Likewise, dont make it too large so that it swallows space
Figure 1 A site in violation of much of what we discuss: too much text, too many graphics, too much animation The content is also broken into frames, which makes it harder for search engines to find it
on the page Keep the color contrast high eg, black text on a white
background, white text on a blue background, etc Remember that your web site is a form of business communication You want what you say to be readable and understandable Graphics Virtually essential to any web site, graphics can also cause a number of problems if they are not optimized for the web ie, resized so that they will load fast on your customers computers Equally important is how your graphics are positioned on your pages are there too many, or not enough, or do they clash with the text placement, etc Too many graphics can make a site look busy, while not enough of them may leave too much blank space and give your site a hollow, unfinished look Graphics arent limited to pictures only There are other elements such as borders, logos, buttons, and other design pieces But like all the other elements that go into a site design, you must not be excessive with them Each page on your site will need to at least have navigation buttons or menus, a few optimized pictures, and your clubs logo Do not overuse graphics on your site just because they may look cool to you If graphics get in the way of your message, your customers may just give up on your site and look elsewhere Animations
There was a time when little animated gif files peppered just about every web site you visited Back then they were a novelty Now they tend to be annoying To be sure, animated graphics do add some interest to a site, but only if used in moderation and within the context of your message In other words, dont put an animation on a page just because it looks cute or cool Remember that your customers have eyes, too, and that one persons cool web-gizmo is another persons annoyance Consider, too, that animations need to be Figure 2 This site is peppered with the flapping America flag animations Since there are so many on optimized just like graphics They need to be every page, it takes awhile for them to load Showing sized so that they do not take too long to load patriotism is a fine thing Gunking up a business Your customers can get quickly annoyed if you web site with animations is just plain excessive have a bunch of slow-loading animations on a page, and if they are loading before anything else on a page appears, they will not stick around to see the information they were trying to find
While your web site design team knows what elements will enhance your site and provide a design
that will be aesthetically pleasing and effective, you should keep in mind that not every cool gizmo or color scheme you see on a web site will work on yours Use all your web site elements in moderation Your visitors eyes will thank you Dennis McDonough is President of BIT Concepts Dennis can be contacted at 502-587-5940 ext 202 or by email at dmcdon@bit-conceptscom or through the website at wwwbit-conceptscom
