Let's assume for now that you are hiring a "web design" company to do the site for you company.   Generally, they don't have much knowledge about your business, but are experts at either advertising or computer programming, sometimes both.  Also, we have convinced you about our "Web Pyramid" approach for establishing a powerful presence on the web.   How do you get what you need, on the web?

Step 1:  Homework Assignment

You have worked hard to get where you're at today.  We have a little more work for you to do, here is a homework assignment to get ready for the web site designers.  You need to collect the following things:

• Full text for all your company's catalogs, literature and brochures on diskettes
• Full text of your standard specifications on diskettes
• Hard copies of your company's literature or catalogs for reference
• Relevant photographs of equipment, installations and people
• Full text and illustrations from your equipment manuals on diskette
• CAD files of machinery for models listed in brochures
• Laboratory, test, literature request, fax-map and other standard forms/documents you regularly send out on diskette
• Standard quote forms and "boiler plate" legal info on diskette
• Any charts, graphs, selection tables, that your sales people frequently use

The idea is that you and your people have put great deal of time in generating the best information to send out to customers.  Most importantly, you don't want your web site designer having to generating more copy or have to retype text from your literature.  You want them to focus on getting the structure and look of your web site right, quickly and cheaply.

Step 2:  What to ask the Web Site Designers to do:

1)  K.I.S.S.:  Keep it simple stupid, this is especially true with web design.  One way to do this to not make long web pages.  Break them up logically into separate pages and use hyper links to connect to them.  This will keep visitors to your site from having to wait for long page downloads.   We all hate waiting!

 

2)  Fonts:  Use simple fonts and limit the number of fonts to two.  There is nothing worse than going to a site that has unreadable or multiple fonts.

 

3)  Images:  Images should be few per page and should make a point.  Think about images as telling a story, what doesn't support the story line should go.

 

4)  Image File Size:  Time is precious, large image files take a long time to download.  Also, resist using image files in place of text, with the exception of buttons.

 

5)  Buttons:  Use them, and label them well, both on the button and for the words that come up when the cursor is passed over it.  Many novices don't get hyper linked text, buttons never fail.

 

6)  META Tags:  META tags are text hidden in the page that carries the description of the page and keywords the page is indexed by.  If you don't have them, the search engine will create a description and list of keywords to index your site by and select words it thinks are accurate, but often are not.  An example is search engine pick up hidden button titles, etc.  Make sure each page has META tags relevant to its page.   Have your web designers show them to you and see for yourself what they say.

 

7)  Java, Frames and Other High Tech Features:   Stay away from these things, not all web browsers support them (these features either won't be seen or even worse) and take more time to download.  I remember a site that had Java on it and it would crash my computer every time I went to it, until I upgraded my browser !

 

8)  Animated GIF's:  These are pictures in a sequence, like flip cards, that can animate an object.  The banner at the top of this page is an animated GIF.  Limit animations to only one per page and never use animated buttons, lines, etc they take away from you message.  Animations are best used to teach something about your equipment.  Kice Industries has a nice one on their aspirators.  Click here to see Kice's animated aspirator !

 

9)  Languages:  If you want to do business internationally, your web site should be duplicated in other languages, with links from one page in English to the same page in another language, so that the visitor can quickly change a page to the same page in his native tongue.

 

People can and frequently enter a web site on pages other than the home page and need to negotiate both the web site and language from any point of entry.  Most popular languages on the internet are English, Spanish, German and French. Think Globally!!   Just remember how you felt when you couldn't read a web page, because it was in another language!!

 

10)  Contact Info:  Make sure that each web page has full company name, address, phone, fax and email link on the page.  No one wants to have to search around to get your contact information.  You may also want to include a separate page with direct contact email and phone information of your key sales people.

 

11)  Review:  Look at the web site when it is up and running at home & work, have friends who live in other states or countries look at it and ask them how it looked, downloaded and operated.

 

12)  Check Out This Site:  There is an excellent primer online that covers the basics of web site design.  More people should check this out before accepting just any design.  The site is titled, "Web Pages That Suck", and is put online by a web-site, designing pro, Mr. Vincent Flanders.  (Vince has now published a book by the same title and you can order your copy from our Reading Room directly from Amazon.com)

Step 3:  Your web site is up, finish the job, Promote it !!

Your up and running!  Just like selling machinery or anything, if they don't know it's there, your customers will not visit your new web site.   Four tips on promoting your web site:

• Put your company's web address on literature, business stationary, business cards, quotations, videos, etc.  Put your web address on every document you send out.  Call it your Online Catalog or Online Service Center.
• Include the web address in all your print media ads
• Submit all your web pages to the major indexing search engines.  All pages, not just the homepage of the site.  Submission software is available and we would recommend that you visit H I Software web site and check into their program call "High Visibility".
  (Special Note:  Make sure before you submitting your site that the META tags are complete on each web page and say what you want.  The search engines are the only ones who are going to read this information and use it to describe your company's activities to customers who are searching for you.)
• H I Software also makes software packages that can tabulate and insert META tags in you web pages called "TagGen".
• Last, but not least, re-submit your web site whenever it is updated or twice a year to keep you site high on the search engine hit list.

Schools Out !

You have successfully completed Web Design 101 !  Here is your diploma, firm handshake and pat on the back.  Good luck to you and let us know how we can help you with your web site.  Also, please feel free to email us at powderandbulk@powderandbulk.com with your comments and suggestions about how we can improve Powder and Bulk Dot Com.