Web site benefits

What are the real benefits of having a web site? The following list is intended to help you consider the ways in which your business or organization might profit from establishing and maintaining its own web site.

Expand your hours of operation. A web site can allow your business or organization to be "open" and operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing information and even selling products and services right from your web site.

Reduce information delivery and staff costs. Reduce or eliminate printing, faxing, postage and handling, long-distance, and customer service and sales staff costs. Visitors can access information about your products and services right from your web site at their convenience. This reduces incoming customer service calls and, thus, demands on costly staff time.

Keep information up-to-date and always within reach. Unlike a printed brochure, business card or catalogue, no one can misplace or lose your web site! Web site content can be changed in minutes, allowing you to keep information accurate and timely at far less cost than reprinting brochures, catalogues and business cards every time updates are needed. And when you're on the web, people always know where to find you.

Expand your customer base with unlimited advertising. Whether your focus is local, regional or world-wide, you can reach a larger audience on the web - in full-colour, sound and motion - at a remarkably reasonable "advertising" cost. And unlike other marketing mediums such as television, print, and radio, there are no time, space, or size restrictions to your digital "ad."

Sell products and services. Your web site can actually sell your products and services for you. Maintain your catalogue online and allow customers to safely place orders through a secure server, via a toll-free phone number and/or a printable form for faxing or mailing orders.

Web Design: keeping it Simple

"Keep it Simple" is possibly the most important rule of web design. As you make decisions about what elements will make up your web site, bring simplicity to the planning table with you and apply the concept to both the look and content. Don't overwhelm your visitors with too much information or too many graphics. Always remember, the purpose of a web site is to pass on information, the less time spent on waiting for pages to download, distracting flashing text and needless graphics, the more time can be spent on taking in the important information!

Navigation Menus Too many menu options can be distracting if not downright confusing. If possible, keep primary menu choices to a minimum; four, five or six are usually enough for most sites. Then use sub-menus for more detail where needed. For example, if your company provides a number of different services, use a menu option called "Services" which links to a page called "Services" that has a sub-menu listing the different services. If you need a larger number of main menu options, consider having two menus. For example, use one for content (services, products, profile, process) and one for site navigation (home, search, site map, help). Or you might want to use a site map or site index that lists and links to all of the content on your site. Also, give your menu options short, meaningful names such as Products, Services, Profile, Process, Contact Us, etc.. Avoid obscure names and keep in mind that short names look better on "buttons" and navigation bars, and contribute to a clean, clutter-free, easy to navigate web site.

Graphics Too many graphics can sloowwwww dowwnnnn youurrr paaggges. So can graphics that are too large (we're talking file size here, not necessarily image dimensions). People are busy... don't make them wait. When planning your use of graphic images, keep it simple, colourful, and elegant. Use graphics sparingly to enhance your content; don't let them take over, clutter up and slow down your pages. If you need to make large, detailed images available to your visitors, use thumbnails (or small representations of the images) that link to the full-sized versions, each on its own page. That way visitors can choose to wait (or not) for the bigger images to download.

Text Content Many companies use existing marketing literature for their web site text... which is fine if this material is up-to-date, accurate, and interesting. If not, it might be a good time to give some thought to updating your message. Even if you're happy with your material, it will probably need some whittling down and editing for use on your site.