The Steps To Succeed With Your Website

By Behnam “Nami” Ataee

Rules Rule

Whether you know it or not, whether or not you wish to admit it, or verbalize it; you operate by business rules. Most times, these rules are so embedded into the business process that most people do not notice them. But they are always there.

It is your primary responsibility to create a written list of these rules and make sure that your team of designers knows what these are and follows them. How your site is designed and programmed is directly impacted by your business rules.

Some examples are:

• Your Privacy Policy
• Your Return Policy
• Credit Card Processing Procedures
• Your Sales and Marketing Approach

Perception is e-Reality

Your Web site is your e-Reality. Users of Internet and World Wide Web know you by your Web presence. Your perception is based solely on the quality of the site. In order to have your e-Reality create an optimum perception, you should consider these key factors:

Menu Design

Your information design is primarily reflected in your menus. Give your customers what they want as quickly as possible. Make sure you don’t force them to click more than three times to get where they want to go (or to what they want to buy).

Color

Design with dramatic colors. You can make compelling choices for setting a mood and still ensure that there is as much contrast as possible, otherwise the reader will develop vision fatigue. You do not want to irritate or tire your visitors in any way.

Colors change appearance on different monitors and different platforms, so what looks cool and calm on one monitor may be bright and glaring on another. Especially if your designer is using a PC to design your site, remember that most often (if monitor is not calibrated to print color) windows based software will display everything 10 to 20% darker and 5 to 10% more saturated than it really is so it is important to view your color designs on different computers before saying ok.

Remember: KEEP IT SIMPLE!!

Graphics

Flashy and bold graphics can be a real eye-catcher, but you should avoid large flash graphics as much as possible. You don’t want too much of a good thing. Again, they tend to tire visitor’s eyes or create a distraction from your message.

Layout

Remember, the first thing that a customer sees matters most. It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that all important elements you wish to communicate show up in the first screen. Do NOT force your customer to scroll down to get to where they want to go. It is also highly recommended to make sure that the customer does not have to scroll more than a single page length.

Precision systems

Precision is not a word that is often used when your original site concepts are considered. Most people seek to use the traditional solutions for site initiation and propagation. They put up a shopping cart and get down to the business of promoting the site.

Understanding the Viability of your site (how well will it responds to traffic and future expansion plans) is as important as anything you can do for your e-business.

Make sure that your site is modular and the design of the modules and the site are based on precise mathematical models that can optimize your revenue streams and optimize your site for maximum numbers of revenue streams.

To find out more about our patented mathematical models for flow optimization, contact us at Dream Warrior Design Group.

Words to Key Into

• Write up every possible word someone might type into a search engine. Imagine you are new to the subject, not knowing the main words that apply and consider what would be entered.

• Do keyword research. Find out how many people search for every single one of the words you came up with every single day. Choose the ones you want to focus on in your content and keyword placement on your webpage.

• Look over your competitors keywords.

• Repeat steps 1-2 on every page of your website.

Promote for Growth

• Next you will need other websites linking TO you. You should do some research! Sit down and map out all the various ways customers get to you. Brainstorm every possible topic that may relate to your topic without competing. From here, you can define where you want these links to come from.

• Contact the owner of the site and offer to include their link on your site in exchange for putting your link on their site. You could even make your offer more inviting by having an affiliate link from their site to yours so they make a commission on sales that may come as a result of their link referral. Make sure your designer is using proper link management techniques. Often, if the links are not properly managed, the two links (from you to them and vice versa) may cancel each other.

• Another way to get links back to your site is by writing articles and submitting them to article submission sites. This approach could have a viral effect since your article would be available for posting content on other websites too.

• When you post in forums, be sure to include a signature line that includes your link to be displayed after your post. By having your link in the signature line, you receive yet another link back to your site.

• Create your own blog. In your blog, include your website link. You can also include your autoresponder subscribe form here as well.

• While we are on the subject of blogs, as long as you are going to have people visit there, follow all the same rules for search engine visibility there. Use targeted keywords in writing your content. Be sure you have placed your keyword strategically on the page. Link from your website to your blog and vice versa.

• Find blogs that interest you in any topic and post relevant comments to those blogs. Always include your signature line with your URL so any time you communicate online, your website URL is included.

Trackers find the Prize

Ensure that your ISP has powerful statistical analysis tools for your site. You should employ analytical sites as much as possible. There are many such sites for further analysis of strengths and defects of various sites, please email us for information (cservice@dreamwarrior.com).

Intelligence and surveillance

Keeping track of what your customers and competitors are doing. Understanding their viewing trends is essential. Market intelligence can be the difference between leadership and being a follower in any given market segment.

Super-leveraging

Beyond leveraging your customer base as a source of referrals and using your promotional materials as a source for new customers, there is super-leveraging.

Super-leveraging describes the process of using your potential customers’ gateway interactions to make them a customer. For example, you can exchange your customer list with other businesses that can use you as a gateway.

To learn more about the process of recognizing and methods for using gateway interactions please feel free to come and visit us at Dream Warrior Design Group’s Web site.

Dream Warrior Group
Telephone: 818.610.3316
7131 Darby Avenue #203
Reseda CA, 91335
http://www.dreamwarrior.com

Copyright Dream Warrior Group, Inc. 1993 – 2008
photo credit: Fosforix