DEVELOPING A WEB SITE STRATEGY

Answers to Common Questions

by Aaron B. Stocco, Web Developer
astocco@praestantia.com

What is the purpose of the web site and what is the best model to use in achieving this purpose?

Defining the purpose for having a web site is an obvious necessity. There are essentially three basic reasons to have a web site in today's current Internet-based marketplace: (1) selling, (2) marketing/promotions, and (3) sharing information. Depending on your purpose, you will have to choose one of three web site models: (1) electronic store, (2) interactive advertisement, or (3) data warehouse.

An electronic store is a secure site devoted to selling products and services. A good example would be a book store such as Amazon.com or a computer store such as Dell.com . This sort of web application will include a back-end database for inventory and transaction management and a front-end interface for customer interaction. The site will mostly be text-based (since calling graphics from a secure server draws resources away from transaction processing). Graphics are only used to demonstrate products. Customers should enjoy a customized interface that monitors their likes and dislikes (remembering their previous purchases and recommending complementary offerings) and give easy access to customer support features such as an online help feature that puts the customer in touch with a live human being.

An interactive advertisement is a hybrid medium, composed of elements drawn from television ads, magazine ads, and computer games. Good examples are web sites used to promote movies such as www.whatisthematrix.com, and www.missionimpossible.com . These types of web sites use animation, video, games, and sweepstakes to peak users' curiosity about a particular offering. Frequently, such sites are weak on content but strong on entertainment value. They have limited appeal and usually run for short periods of time in conjunction with off-line promotion campaigns.

Data Warehouses are online applications that allow users to login to information repositories, learn, and share information with other users. Most data warehouses are used in combination with the electronic store model. A good example would be an online auction service like Ebay.com or a job search service like Monster.com. A data warehouse web site stores extensive information on a wide variety of things (e.g., auction items, jobs, resumes), gives access to this information to registered users, and allows users to interact with the information in achieving a goal. These sites usually have heavy traffic and a lot of server-side activity, performing multiple calls to databases through server applications like Microsoft Active Server Pages, IBM WebSphere Java Server Pages, or Allaire Cold Fusion Pages. Databases can quickly grow out of control and must be maintained by data professionals who can monitor server traffic and adjust hardware resources to meet service demand.

How do we know if the web site is working as designed? How do we track users?

Evaluating your web site is another obvious necessity. It can range from simple user tracking through a third party "hit counter" like www.thecounter.com, to extensive user tracking using cookies and server logs. Using cookies is probably the most accurate method of measuring user activity on your web site. However, cookie usage should be divulged to users and privacy statements should explain the precise ways in which information is gathered and used by the company that owns the web site.

Lastly, cookies have the disadvantage that some users may disable them through their browsers.

Regardless of the method you choose to track users of your web site, it is important not to be perceived by web users as being overly intrusive. Writing on this topic, information expert and author of "Who Owns Information?", Dr. Anne Wells Branscombe advises:

The information industry must not become a Peeping Tom whom we must catch in the act of violating our privacy. It must seek to become a responsible partner, helping us find the information that will allow us to make reasonable purchases of things we need or want at prices we can afford.

Taking such advice to heart and implementing privacy policies that protect customers' personal information offers dividends beyond goodwill, it may even protect the web site operator from legal action.

How do we protect our intellectual property from plagiarizers?

Most content on the web is easily copied. An unfortunate consequence of information sharing is that some people will take information without asking and without giving proper attribution to the authors of that information. On a web site there are few ways to protect your intellectual property. Scripts that control interactions between elements (such as changing graphics) can be encrypted or run on the web server (thus hiding them from the client). However, once text is sent to the user's browser it is easily copied. Copyright notices are ubiquitous online, yet there is no way to enforce them.

Some technological solutions are available, the most popular being the usage of PDF (Portable Document Format) files from Adobe Acrobat™. PDF files offer authors extensive control over how they are used. For example, documents may be password protected and printing can be limited to a certain number of copies or disabled entirely. PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader and take longer to load in web browsers than conventional text.

Since there will always be ways for hackers and plagiarizers to steal information from web sites, it is advisable to put sensitive information on secure, password-protected servers or to keep it off-line and available by special request only.

How do we get our web site catalogued by major search engines?

This is a major concern for all new web sites. Getting your web site's content indexed by all major search engines means that web surfers will be able to find your web site after running subject searches. The first step is to identify what search terms users will most likely use to find material related to your products and/or services. In addition, Praestantia has software that can identify the most commonly used search terms. Adding some of these terms to your keyword list can increase hits to your web site. Increasing hits means more traffic, which is only part of the goal of getting listed in search engines. The major goal, however, is to attract people who are actively searching for your products and services.

The second step involves creating "doorway" web pages that include extensive descriptions of your products and services and many keywords. When a search engine accesses these doorway pages, it archives the contents. Descriptions and keywords should be repeated several times on these pages. This will have the effect of convincing the search engines that your site has abundant information on certain topics. The strategy may seem deceptive, but it needn't be so.

If you use doorway pages, make sure that your choice of keywords honestly reflects the information you provide on your web site. Otherwise, you may get useless traffic from people who have no interest whatsoever in your offerings.

The last step is to promote your web site to search engines using a "multiple site submission" software application such as SubmitWolf Pro™. This will put your promotion on autopilot, submitting your doorway pages (and any other pages you specify) to search engines of your choice. With this amazing software program you can easily repeat the submission procedure on a regular basis and ensure that search engines accurately catalogue the latest updates to your web site such as new articles, press releases, new products and services, etc. Praestantia will submit all new client web sites to search engines using SubmitWolf Pro. In addition, clients may purchase and download the software online.