Yesterday I posted part 1 of my process for starting a new web site. I covered the following:
- Come up with a good idea
- Identify your profit model
- Write up a business plan and do a market analysis
- Register a domain name and business
If you haven’t read it yet, please do! This post will still be here when you’re done.
For the sake of example, I’m going to use a made-up site concept. Let’s say Joe Blue comes to me… he has a degree in engineering and has worked for a custom water slide company for 5 years. He’s decided it is time for him to build his own custom water slides. He wants a web site that will drive him business.
- Joe’s good idea:
Build custom water slides - Joe’s profit model:
He will get income from building water slides. His web site will bring him business. - Joe’s business plan:
Joe has taken some business classes and has worked in the water slide market for a while. He has done his homework on pricing. He also plans to offer slides with a new twist: he will offer water slides made from clear plexi-glass and sell a water additive that keeps the plexi-glass clean. - Joe’s domain and business name:
Joe is going to use the domain www.joeswaterparkslides.com and register the business name “Joe’s Water Park Slides, Inc.”
Now, it’s time to move on.
Work out your expected/desired visitor cycle
This is a really important step. You can focus your site on you - the company - or on your visitors. A lot of times, companies put the site’s focus on them. They forget that a site is only as good as its visitors. A better approach is to think about your visitors, anticipate their needs, and give them the tools and information they are looking for.
Answer the following questions:
- Who do you expect to come to your site?
- Where will they come from? How will they get to your site?
- What is their purpose in coming to your site?
- What would you consider a successful outcome of their visit? What do you ultimately want them to do? When a visitor does what we want them to do, we call it a conversion.
- They aren’t likely to just jump on your site, do their conversion (put the item in their cart, email the owner, etc), and leave. We most likely want them to know what they’re getting into and be excited about it. What questions will they have, and how can you provide them with these answers?
Once you’ve gotten to know your visitors and you know the process they will go through on your site, you can map out a cycle… the step-by-step process you expect visitors go through from when they first land on your site to their conversion point.
Joe’s visitor cycle:
- Visitors are resort owners; people who want a new commercial water slide.
- They will most likely enter the site when searching for “water park slide.”
- Visitors will want to know what makes Joe’s slides stand out from other slides.
- They will want assurance that Joe knows what he is doing and has happy clients.
- They’ll also want to see safety information, photo galleries, and possibly use a slide-building tool.
- Joe ultimately wants visitors to either fill out a contact form or call the phone number indicating that they are interested in speaking with Joe (or a sales rep) about a slide.
Plan your menus: do some card sorting
Card sorting is one of my favorite steps. It’s just fun to organize, and watch others organize, your site concept.
Take a big pad of super-sticky post-it notes and write down everything you think a user should be able to do or learn on your site. Depending on the site you are building, it might be a lot of stuff, or it might not be very much at all. Don’t forget “about us,” “contact us,” and other business-type pages. Also, write down the big target keywords you found when researching your domain name, since users will definitely be interested in reading about those keywords.
The very best way to do this exercise is to get some people who match the potential visitor profile, and have them do the sorting while you watch very quietly. Have them create categories or topics themselves. Then, take photos of their work and ask any questions you might have. Repeat this with two more groups of people.
It is OK if you do this yourself, but keep in mind that you’re too close to the site. Your own sorting will be prejudiced.
Once you have sorting results, make some decisions and create an organized document describing everything a user should be able to do or learn on your site. At this point, it shouldn’t be a diagram or drawing; it should simply be a hierarchical outline.
Joe’s outline:
As you can see, his site will contain plain old web pages, a photo gallery, an email form, a contact form, and a few blog categories that he can add things to as needed.
- Business stuff
- About Us
- Contact Us
- Careers
- Privacy Policy
- Slide Show (photo gallery)
- Water Park Slides
- Refer a friend (email a friend form)
- Getting a new slide
- Slide Building Tool (here’s one he likes at CedarWorks)
- Pricing
- Request a quote (contact form)
- Frequently Asked Questions (blog category)
- Caring for your slide (blog category)
- How to care for your slide
- How to keep your slide safe
- etc.
Get a professional graphic design
It’s really worth paying for a professional graphic design. Even if you don’t care what the site looks like, your customers will. If you are going for venture capital, your investors will care as well. Also, there’s no substitute for the “wow” you get when your web site and business card have a stand-out design.
Meet with a professional graphic designer who has a lot of experience with Web sites, as well as your developer, if they are separate people. It’s good to involve these people in earlier steps as well, if you can.
If there are designs you like, now is the time to speak up. Let them know your favorite color, and the awesome logo you saw at the boutique you visited last week. Be open to suggestions, though, as well.
Choose your designer carefully. He/she should be familiar with web usability concepts, and have experience developing web site designs.
Your designer will come up with a design. Ask for a logo, letterhead, and business card layout while they’re at it.
Be open to their original approach; it might not be what you expect. Give feedback as necessary, but be sensitive; designers’ work is art and they could very well take criticism personally. Rather than be directly confrontational, like “your idea sucks,” say something more objective like, “do you really think all caps will be easy to read online?”
Joe’s graphic design
Since I’m not a designer, I’m going to skip this step in Joe’s example. I’ll use wireframe-like drawings as needed.
What’s next?
In my next post, I’ll go into the following steps in detail:
- Do some paper prototyping
- Have your site professionally developed
- Do some usability testing
- Launch!
- Maintain your site