People have learned where to look for certain things through their previous experiences of using websites. Over time, conventions have developed as to where people expect elements to appear on a website.

Most businesses should avoid breaking these conventions, or risk confusing the users of their website.

Some standard conventions include:

• Logo top left, linked to the home page
• Search form top right (if required at all)
• Primary navigation that stands out. It can be horizontal or vertical:
  • If horizontal, located near the top of the page
  • If vertical, usually on the left, but the right is also ok
• The home link is always located top left of the primary navigation

Radical, cutting edge designs that challenge users expectations have their place, but not on your business website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a critical component of most websites, as just about everybody who uses the internet to search for something will use a search engine.

Search engines run software programs (called ‘bots’) that effectively download most of the websites on the internet. From there they will be classified by complex algorithms to determine what, if any, search results they will appear in.

Basic SEO simply involves making sure your website can be indexed effectively by the search bots. I often see websites built by professionals that offer nothing to the search bot, and sometimes even block its progress, ensuring no presence on the search engine results pages.

So the first step is to ensure your website is search engine friendly. After that, you can go further and target specific key words and key phrases in your website, and try to appear in the results pages for those. This is where SEO becomes and art and a science.

The website development industry is composed of many small players. Professional website design firms are rarely larger than ten people, and many are just one person.

Why are there no big website design company’s? Big company’s offer website services along with their phone connection and internet services, but they are too big to offer the flexibility that small business requires, so they haven’t been very successful at it. It’s not like providing a telephone or internet connection where a handful of packages will cater to the majority of customers.

Websites are different; there is no one size fits all approach. To understand the unique needs of a small business, it helps if you are also a small business, with enough flexibility to be able to adapt to your customers unique requirements.

Thinking of starting a website? Before you chat to a website designer, you can create your own draft website just using a word document. This will be the kind of information your website designer will be requiring from you, so you can be prepared - which will save time and money, and allow for a more accurate quote.

Open a new document and consider page one as the home page. Decide what you need to say –what will your main heading be? What will you say in your first paragraph? This exercise will force you to focus on what you have to offer your customers, and it will give you an idea of how much information you will need to provide in order to give a complete overview of your business.

Create a new page for each section of your website. You may include a page for each product or service you offer, or just have one page as an overview of all your products or services. The contact page can be straightforward – just list all the methods of contacting your business.

Have a look at other websites in your industry to get ideas, and think about what it is that you like about your favourite websites. Communicate all this to your website designer to will help ensure that you get the most value from your website.

It’s obvious that you need a website to be in small business these days, but how do you go about organising the content that will be on your website? If you have a business plan (and you should, even if it’s basic), then you can use it as a starting point to develop your website content.

The summary of your business plan is analogous to your home page content. It contains an overview of your business: what you do; what you offer your customers; who are your customers; why they should do business with you; etc.

Your business plan will include a list of the products or services that you offer, with detailed descriptions. You can use this information to form the bulk of your website. It may require several sections to include all the information in an organised and easy-to-find manner.

Throw in a biography (often called ‘About Us’), and all your contact details and there’s the heart of your website. This process can be done in reverse. Putting together content for a website can be used as the basis for your business plan.

A basic website is just a collection of files. They often include photo files (usually jpeg) and web pages (often html), as well as many others. When you visit a website with your computer, the files are downloaded from a remote computer to your computer so you can see them. The remote computer, which could be located anywhere in the world, hosts these files and serves them upon request. The recurring hosting fee that you pay when you have a website is effectively rental for the space that your website occupies on the host computer.

I know people who have tried to send an email to a website address: www.example.com, or tried to visit the website of an email address: fred@example.com. The problem is not always evident to new computer users. So how can you tell an email address from a website address? The simplest way to tell the difference is an email address always contains the ‘at sign’ (@), and a website address never does.
Email addresses should be written in lower case eg. fredsmith@example.com. Sometimes you will see an email address written in mixed case (FredSmith@example.com) to improve readability.

Business websites can be roughly categorised into three categories: brochure, ecommerce and hybrid.

1. Brochure website

This is for businesses operating in the ‘offline’ world, also referred to as ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses. They have a physical office or shop that they operate from, and they don’t sell goods or services through the internet.

A brochure website is simplest and most economical type of website; it can even be just a home page and nothing else. It’s an information source about your business - like a brochure that you would hand out to potential customers – that contains some sales and marketing copy and contact information.

A website for a restaurant could contain information about the style of food served, the location, operating hours, menus, how to contact or make a booking.

Increasingly, this is how people look for a business.

2. Hybrid Website

Businesses who operate a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ business, but who also take advantage of the ecommerce possibilities the internet provides, are businesses that may have a hybrid website.

Diversifying your business to include an online component can introduce efficiencies and enable you to reach new markets.

Examples:

· retailer selling online
· banks
· newspapers

3. Pure ecommerce

With the explosion of internet use around the world, new business models have been appearing to take advantage of the new space.

Many businesses now operate purely in the online space, with no offline operations. This can be a very efficient way to conduct business, as ordering and fulfilment processes can be automated.

Examples:

· Google
· hotspotting.com.au
· eBay
· realestate.com.au

One of the biggest trends on the Internet right now is Social Networking websites. Sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn are so popular that they regularly get mentioned in mainstream media. Heavily populated by Generation Y, the gaudy page designs of MySpace have become something of a phenomenon.

Politicians and pop stars alike have MySpace pages, in an attempt to stay in touch with the new connected generation. And advertisers love the demographic targeting afforded by such sites just as much.

When creating your profile on a social networking site, consider the privacy issue, everything you put on there is available for the world to see. In the future you may be applying for a job, or even just applying for a loan, and it’s possible that your online profiles will be scrutinised.

There’s no doubt that the synergy generated by such a large network is has enormous potential for productivity if used efficiently. But distractions are everywhere, there are so many gadgets to play around with, that it’s really easy to lose big chunks of time just exploring and playing and not really being productive. The time wasting factor is enough for some workplaces to ban the sites altogether.

So in order to reap the benefits of being so connected, but not wasting too much time, set limits or goals when using these sites. If you lose too much time, set yourself a time limit, or set a task that must be completed, such as introducing yourself to four people in your industry.

So, business productivity tools or time wasters? Both, depending on how they are used, but one thing is certain, they are here to stay, and they will continue to grow and diversify.

Ten years ago, most people would look for goods and services in the Yellow Pages or newspaper classifieds. Today, people ‘Google’ the business they are seeking. A business with a professionally built website is more likely to be found near the top of the results for a relevant search.

The types of business that don’t need a website are diminishing as more and more people search for everything online. Five years ago, many categories of business didn’t need a website. Why would a motor mechanic need a website? Today if you are searching for a local motor mechanic on Google and the top result takes you to a well designed web page, you may well contact that business first. Especially if it provides details of the services provided, operating hours, pricing and contact information.

Consider a restaurant website for example, it could contain information about the style of food served, the location, operating hours, menus, how to contact or make a booking. This information would be very useful to the person looking for somewhere to eat out in the local area.

A brochure website is simplest and most economical type of website; it can even be a ‘one pager’ - just a home page and nothing else. It’s an information source about your business that is accessible to potential customers wherever they are located. As a minimum it will contain sales and marketing copy and contact information. It is for businesses operating in the ‘offline’ world - also referred to as ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses - which have a physical office or shop that they operate from, and they don’t sell goods or services through the internet.

As more and more people search for goods and services online, consider the advantage for your business of a professionally designed brochure website.