This article originally appeared in
Svoboda's Home and Small Business Review
Common Sense Computing
Wm. R. Stocking
Dec, 1996

Web Site: Product and Production - Part Two

by William R. Stocking

Purpose, Budget and Audience were the topics of the first article. This month we cover how to handle different types of PRODUCTS, how to PRESENT content on your web site.

Products

The products, (services included), you are selling will greatly determine the nature of the production of content for your web site and the type of product or service will also greatly influence the type of promotion needed to do to make your web site productive.

Products suitable for selling on a web site can range from toys to automobiles. However, some products lend themselves to web site commerce better than others. The type of product that will not benefit from a web site is something that is already easy to find and buy: Fast food, groceries, and other commodity items are not good candidates for Internet exposure. Businesses that are very location specific also will not usually benefit from having a web site.

One type of business that can benefit from a web site is the traditional mail-order business. For one thing, a mail order company is experienced in handling the "back-end" part of remote business transactions. Traditionally, mail order products are things that are easy to describe in a catalog, easy to ship and require very little after market follow-up and support. A mail-order business web site is initially an extension of the traditional catalog - not the whole marketing program.

Intellectual property such as reports, books, software also lends itself to web commerce. A web site offers methods of product "sampling" that is un-available to suppliers of products that appeal to the other senses. Shareware is an example of what can be done well from a web site. Netscape did it's initial marketing totally from the Internet. Products such as Winzip, Pegasus Email and Trumpet and most of the HTML editors are available ONLY on the Internet. One of the most successful web sites on the Internet is a book store.

Services: If your business supplies some type of service that can be utilized world wide, then you probably need a web site as a part of your overall promotional program. Example: if your business repaired vintage clocks you might not be able to survive on local traffic if you decided to move it to a small town. However, a web site might help you expand the reach of your business to the rest of the world resulting in being able to locate that business anywhere you choose to.

Presentation

Assuming that you have decided your business can benefit from a website, the next question will be how to go about planning and producing that site. In part one, we discussed the importance of having a well defined purpose for the site, knowing your audience and setting up a budget. When we talk about presentation, we are getting more into the nitty-gritty of the project. Here are some simple tips and guidelines:

1) Keep It Simple Stupid: It's a hackneyed saying but nowhere in the avalanche of technology is the KISS principle more in need than in matters of the Internet! Beware of the impulse to make your web site too elaborate. Beware of graphic designers or desk-top publishing professionals who have recently discovered the Web!

2) What HTML is and is not: HTML, the language, and the HTML tools of web page technology were never intended to be the equivalents of desk-top publishing programs. HTML is a technology intended to structure documents not format them. HTML was intended to structure documents so that different types of computers with different kinds of browsers would allow reading of documents and perception of the meaning of these documents in approximately, (NOT EXACTLY), the same way.

3) Graphics: Pictures and designs can help add visual interest to your web site but a few words of caution are in order. Do not embed important text or messages in a graphic element because there are still some text based web browsers that do not read graphics at all! The addition of graphics elements on web pages will slow down the transmission of those pages to the person visiting your site. Also remember, if you are paying for your web site traffic based on the number of megabytes per month, the more graphical your site is the more it's going to cost in usage fees from your site provider!

Some suggestions: Make the graphics or pictures small, or use a "thumbnail" versions that can be "clicked on" to get a larger rendering. It will involve more work, but consider having a minimal graphic version of version of your pages for graphically impaired users. The use of JPEG type graphic files instead of "GIF" formatted files is highly reccommended as they can be substantially smaller.

4) Gimmicks: Yes, you can make your logo flash on and off. Don't do it! Some type of web site gimmicks are obnoxious even when used sparingly, and this one is a big "No, No"! Another gimmick that should be used sparingly is the animated gif. (A "gif" is a picture format type used on web sites.) Here again, there are still many computers out there that cannot see either the blinking gimmick or the animation gimmick.

5) Frames: Frames were invented by Netscape as a way of allowing one to format a web page with one part that would remain stationary and another part that can be scrolled up and down. It can be a very useful way to present information. However, frames are still not considered to be a "standard" means of presenting information and there are millions of computers and browsers that can't read frames. If a prospective customer is using the AOL 2.5 web browser or the older CompuServe browser, older Microsoft Explorer or a Unix Lynx browser they will never see the content of the frames. This renders your site useless to these people. My suggestion is to forget using frames unless you can also provide an alternate version of your pages. And, once again, frames take more time at the user end as well.

6) Navigation: This is probably the most important aspect of your pages - being able to get from one section of your site to another with a minimual amount of confusion. Setting up good navagation requires good planning, but the actual excution of a good layout is not difficult at all. First, sketch it out on large sheets of paper.

7) Document size: I'd suggest that you have no more than four or five screens full of information without internal links to take the viewer quickly from section to section. Here again, the bigger the document, even if only text, the longer it will take to download to the users browser.

8) Browsers: Always remember that the ultimate appearance of your pages is controlled to a great extent at the user end. Remember, that no matter how slick you think your site "looks", it may look different depending on how the users have their browsers set-up! Browsers can be set up for different default color schemes, different fonts, etc. Therefore, make sure that you have CONTENT worth the time of the visitor, not just fluff.

9) Speed: There's an old saying "You can never be too thin or too rich". Well, I'll say with regards to web sites: "You can never have one that is too fast"! Keep it interesting but not too cluttered.

(William Stocking is President of First Business Systems, Ltd. an Information Management Consulting firm to businesses of all sizes. As of Fall, 2003, Bill has written over 90 articles on the Internet and business computing. He also publishes a monthly electronically delivered newsletter: YTN. He can be reached by email: wrs@firstbiz.com.