Nowadays internet has become such a vital part of our life that from waking up in the morning until sleeping at night we are connected to the whole world through it either on our personal computer, mobile or I-pad etc. Viewing from the perspective of branding and enhancing our business through internet via a website is the need of the era. Popularity in a certain field socially is counted a lot.
Even a child today asks any enquirer to refer internet. If a child finds any person asking about some product, or some service provided by a certain enterprise or organization, he/she without a second thought asks the person to google it. Whats this?? Today internet has flourshed so much that every information someone wants is there on internet. So internet is a very good medium to enhance our business with the changes going on these days in our society.
To make full utilization of internet for enhancing our business, certain points are required to be kept in mind always. Because an idea gives us profit only when it Is used in a positive manner and with perfect planning about all the things.
A website is mirror to any business. Every aspect of a particular business should be represented in such a manner that the first glance of your website may tempt the user of your website to navigate it properly. It should be designed and developed keeping in mind each and every small thing related to our business so that the user in very friendly manner gets the appropriate information & is not misguided in any way. Through this only we can develop trust which is the key ingredient to develop long term relationship with them. Customers nowadays are in very hurry. They just want instant results these days. Delay of even 2-3 seconds can cause loss of a customer. So keeping in mind their requirements & needs and serving accordingly is very essential.
So I am here in this article trying to incorporate summary of several points which should be kept in mind before taking the decision to give our business shape via a website.
1) Determine the prime purpose of your website:
- Kind of business (It may be a firm trying to increase sell of its products, an organization trying to reach people to serve them, personal blogging, etc.)
According to the type of business the type of website varies. In case of a firm trying to sell its products we have to make an e-commerce website which includes all the products available in that firm along with the prices, shopping cart is included and payment gateway is also required to be integrated. Web portals or blogs can be made.
- Brand building : It doesn’t mean just spending money on the brand. Instead, it’s about building an entity that will resonate with your customers and keep them coming back again and again—even when there’s no deal or promotion to entice them. To grow a business online you first need to grow your product. For brand building :
- Research the audience properly. You must be well aware of the targeted audience.
- Determine what your audience wants & try to provide them that only.
- Balance your online media mix through repetition, and get your ads out in front of your target audience using behavioral targeting, site specific targeting and re-messaging.
- Social media integration like facebook, twitter so that you can know what people have to say about your product and this is a good medium to interact with the audience.
- Build up your reputation online.
2) Requirements:
A website is integration of designing , developing, database programming, flash & javascript programming, marketing of website, SEO integration at one place. So to build a good website specialized personnels are required. In web market nowadays many tools are available using which we can ourself make our website after knowing some basics like wordpress but to develop a well established website one requires to hire some professionals and it incurs money to the business. But if our business is successful online, it’s an asset.Nowadays outsourcing is done. So we should decide properly whether we have to do our work on our own or to outsource it.
3) Keen analysis of business and division into logical sections:
In case of small scale business a website of 5-6 pages can work well but in case of large scale and big business organizations in which various departments are there, proper division should be mirrored in the website too. So for that proper functioning of a particular business should be analyzed properly and web pages should be decided according to that only. The process of doing business should be identified properly.
4) Building an appropriate navigation system:
A proper distribution of all the pages and links to those pages (navigation system) should be made so that it’s easy for users to access what they want on your website. Home page should be designed in such a way that links for every page in our website should be from home page only. It should not look so messy that it is difficult to understand for the user where to click and how to reach a particular page. The top menu, left menu, right menu, bottom menu should be well maintained. Search box should be there.
5) Innovative designing:
Rich look and feel to a website is very necessary to entice our users. The placement of each and every pixel at the required place is very important. New innovative designing idea, Use of proper color combination, Pixel perfect website,
Typography, etc. are to be kept in mind.
Website should be easily reponding. It should consist of optimized images & other content so that it may not take much time to open particular pages due to which user gets irritated. It should be fast & must give quick responses to the users.
6) Search engine friendly website:
SEO work starts at the designing level only. Well skilled web designers nowadays design SEO friendly website keeping in mind all the tips & tricks to make the website easily searchable. Proper tags, metatags, headlines are used. Flash & javascript programming is used less. Frames should not be used. Such things should be kept in mind and well skilled professionals should be hired for this work.
7) Content writing:
The content is very important for a website promotion. Good content attracts users quickly and it is important to develop trust in the users. Content makes a website search engine friendly too if it consist of keywords properly. All the copyright rules should be kept in mind. The content should not be copied from somewhere. It should not include defamation about any one or any organization. Copyright & trademark concerns should be kept in mind to avoid any legal ambiguities in future regarding domain name, pictures and content of a website.
8) Interactive and user understandable communication
Proper communication with the users of the website is very necessary for making our business successful. In case of queries from the user, proper response should be there. Enquiry forms should be made in interactive and understandable manner. Contact Us should include proper address of the firm, contact number & e-mail address so that proper communication can be made. Nowadays Instant Chat System, Instant Messaging System, Forums are maintained to let the user know true & proper information.
9) Development of the website:
Here design functions & operations are described in detail. Screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams and other documentation are described & the output describes the new system as a collection of modules or subsystems.
Design elements describe the desired software features in detail, and generally include functional hierarchy diagrams, screen layout diagrams, tables of business rules, business process diagrams, pseudocode, and a complete entity-relationship diagram with a full data dictionary. These design elements are intended to describe the software in sufficient detail that skilled programmers may develop the software with minimal additional input design.
10) Testing of the website:
Before publishing our work, we need to do the testing. We should get our website tested by a layman who has basic knowledge of computer and internet, observe him while navigating our website carefully so that we may know where he is finding difficulty. We should note all the points. Unit, system and user acceptance testings are often performed. After testing we should immediately go for the changes required in our website.
11) Maintenance of the website:
Modifications done in website after implementing the idea to correct faults, improve performance and other attributes is very important aspect.
From time to time we should upgrade the technology used in our website to pace up with the current scenario in IT industry. The content and products should be updated frequently so that users of website get proper information regarding what we deliver.
I have tried to cover all the points one should keep in mind while making a website for their business. Will try to cover these points in details in forthcoming articles. Hope these points may bring success to your business for a long term.
