By: Grant Aldrich

Despite the aesthetic benefits that flash can bring to a website, far more disadvantages exist when applied to the content-driven website of a professional service firm. What you typically gain in eye-catching graphics and animation, you lose in usability, navigation, and overall comprehension of your information architecture.

If potential clients cannot effectively navigate your information architecture, the website will not be a valuable tool in demonstrating the firm's thought leadership. Ultimately, prospects will not understand what services or solutions can be beneficial to their organization, nor convinced that your organization has the best people and experience to get the job done.

First, let's establish what applications of flash I am specifically referring to. The following is a list of applications that I feel are most relevant, but this is by no means comprehensive:

1. Flash Introductions
2. Rotating Logo, or Mission Statement
3. Flash Navigation

For the sake of time, I will just focus on Flash Introductions. You will find that the rationale can be equally applied to the other two applications, and will give you a philosophy to make your own inferences on a case-by-case basis.

When I see an elaborate flash introduction (you know the kind, the one that takes 2 minutes to load and feels like a commercial) the only thing that I derive from the swirling animation and upbeat music is, "Well, at least they have a really good flash animation team." It may seem silly to say that, but what else is there to infer?

For all of the precious attention a flash introduction demands, it tells a prospect nothing about the firm's core competencies, prior experience, or caliber of their professionals. It is just a flashy commercial. Any firm can hire a great flash production company. However, the most successful firms will build a website with a simple and intuitive navigation structure where prospects can easily find and access firm knowledge.

Think of it from the point of view of your buying center. Your prospect's executives are concerned with answering questions like:

1. Who are you?
2. What types of services and solutions do you provide?
3. Have you worked with companies similar to my own?
4. What kind of success have you had?

Flash introductions are distracting and create roadblocks for executives to access this information and ultimately solicit your services. It is the answers to these questions that sell professional services. Not an animated commercial.

The prospect's time and attention are precious. Professional service firms must adopt a philosophy to funnel prospects to their knowledge-base, effectively and without distractions.

Given that this could be your only shot, ensure that when a prospect comes to your website, they can find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible.

-Grant

About The Author:
For more information, go to ProfessionalServiceMarketing.com, to join the discussion. Grant L. Aldrich is an editor for the Professional Service Marketing blog http://www.ProfessionalServiceMarketing.com. Grant has 6 years of internet marketing experience with professional firms. He is Director of Client Services at http://www.leadtank.com

By Veselin Andreev

The most effective design is the one that is the simplest possible and that meets your users’ needs, because the needs and expectations of the visitors to your website are your main concern.

It is the one that announces, simply and clearly, what your website is about. It is the one that quickly offers users exactly what they are expecting to see on your pages, without troubling them with insignificant information.

The biggest mistake of lots of web designers is to design according to their own point of view, without considering what the users want and need.

Factors damaging website design effectiveness

Long download times
Badly written content
Complex design with too many elements
Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for the user
Poorly written, unvalidated code that generates errors

Long download times

Your pages’ download time is extremely important. Your users will simply leave your website without viewing it, if you exhaust their patience waiting for your pages to download, and users are known to have low thresholds when waiting to view web pages. Remember, the other sites are only a mouse click away from them.

The download time is important no matter what type of element is under consideration: graphics, multimedia, scripts, or applets that are necessary for you to project your site’s message effectively; and to this end, you need to be cautious about where on your site you place such elements.

Don't put them in without thinking about the best place for them, and don’t include them just because you or your designer had an idea about it. Design them small-sized, as well.

Badly written content

Text prepared for print has nothing to do with text for the Web. According to Jacob Nielsen, the Web usability guru, users have more difficulties in reading the information on computers than in printed editions. They scan it, rather than read it carefully. Huge text blocks cannot be scanned and will not fit on a computer screen, and hence are unreadable by your users.

The following means can be used to make text more readable and effective:

separate paragraphs
titles
subtitles
indentations
bullets
bold type
hyperlinks
different fonts and sizes

Complex design with too many elements

Don't complicate users’ work by complex design with many elements, which makes the website unclear in terms of its downloading and its appearance on the screen.

Avoid frames. They could seriously damage your website usability.

Avoid having a site made exclusively in Flash, because just to download a Flash site, before your users can see anything of your site at all, will take several minutes, so you won’t be able to explain to your users in a fast and clear way, what your site is about, who it would be useful for, or what your users could gain by using your services.

If you insist, however, on including Flash elements, a much better option is to insert them into a regular html page as a small, separate file, but even in this case, you should have a clear purpose in including it, a purpose that contributes to the overall effect of your website.

Always include a comprehensible title tag, which explains clearly what is your page about (the title tag is the page title you see on the top of the browser).

Always include text on your homepage that explains to your users who you are and what you are talking about on your site.

Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for the user

Don't upset the user by poor navigation; it will make him feel lost. A visitor could enter your site by any one of its pages, not only by the home page. If he enters by a different page, it must be immediately evident to him where he is on your site, and where he can go by clicking on the links provided.

Don't leave your site without a site map. The site map gives the user the opportunity to orient himself quickly and easily.

Always put on each of your pages a link to the home page plus the firm's name and logo, and make them a link to the home page, as well.

Avoid orphaned pages, where a user could get lost.

Don't change the default color of the hyperlinks, because users expect to see them exactly that way. When a text is blue, the user is used to thinking it is a link, and if it is purple, that it is a visited link. Colors different from the default ones will confuse them.

Don't make blue a text that is not a hyperlink. That will also confuse them.

Don't place a link that leads to the same page, except those that go to other sections on the page.

Poorly written, unvalidated code that generates errors
The code your site is written in is validated according to browsers from different types and versions.

Incorrectly written program code will make your site users close it immediately due to its poor appearance in their browsers.

Correctly written code is the best way to ensure the proper appearance of your pages on the greatest possible variety of browsers. This includes both old and future versions.

Veselin Andreev is one of the founders of Svilaves, which offers website design and promotion services, the quality and effect of which are aimed at the successful development of their clients’ business. Read the exact details of their services at http://www.svilaves.com

So, you've decided that your company needs a web site. Now what? Since we are ultimately talking about your "online business image", unless you yourself have web design experience, finding that perfect web designer to create your company site is a very important next step. If you've never had a web site created before, you will find that there is quite a lot to consider if you want your site to be successful, and you may have to do a bit of homework to find the right person for you.

Regardless of the type of site you want, to be successful, your site will need to do, at least, these 3 things:

• Look professional
• Function properly
• Get good positioning on the search engines

In achieving this goal, there's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that there are all kinds of designers out there, offering all kinds of services, and prices are pretty much across the board. The good news is that there are some simple points you can follow to help make this process easier.

So, how do you go about finding a designer?
Since there are so many different companies offering web design, you might start by making a list of what your specific needs are. Every site is unique so it's a good idea to know what you need before you start calling around or sending in estimate forms. Some things you might need to know are:

• Will you be selling a product online?
• Does your site require a database?
• Do you also need web hosting? or a domain name?
• Do you want to have your clients contact you through a form?
• How many pages do you think the site will be?
• Are there any pages or features specific to your business that you would like to have on your site?

Also, write down a couple of URLs of sites that you like. Or maybe you've seen a specific feature on another site that you would like to incorporate into your own site. Having a rough idea of the kind of site you're looking for will help you find the right designer for your project.

Referrals
One of the best ways I've found to find the right designer is to get a referral from someone you know personally who has already had their site designed and they are happy with the site, and their experience with the designer. So let your friends and family know that you are shopping around for someone to help you create your online business image. People who have had a good experience with their web design company will be more than happy to pass the information along.

If you do get a referral from someone, go and look at the designer's site and see what else they've done. If you're interested, you can fill out a free quote form on their site, or email the designer with the specs of your project.

Job sites
There are a number of online sites that will help you match your project with a number of designers who will then bid on your project. The one thing to be aware of is that these sites have all types of designers listed with their service from those with years of experience, to those who just bought themselves the latest version of Front Page and have now labeled themselves "web designer".

Although these job sites do make it harder for less experienced people to be listed as a serious prospect, when they ask for your project description, you can include on there that "only serious professionals need apply". You can sometimes eliminate the amount of riff-raff that will send in proposals for your project.

The biggest problem people have with using these job sites is that potential clients are usually overwhelmed with the number of quotes they receive for their project. Be aware that you may have to rifle through a lot of proposals that are not what you are looking for.

These sites usually offer a Designer's Profile and some kind of a rating system, which can help you learn a bit about a potential designer. Reading the reviews listed from previous clients can also help shed some light on your choice of designers.

Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages ads are expensive so chances are that you will find professional design firms to successful web design individuals listed there. They will usually list their URL in their ad and it's always a good idea to go to their site and see what they have to offer before contacting them.

What you should be looking for in a designer?
Possibly you have a couple of designers you are interested in. But how do you know for sure? There are a few specific things that you should be aware of when picking your designer.

Portfolio
First and foremost, you want to check out their portfolio. This is the body of work that this designer has recently created and it tells a lot about what they offer. All web designers should have an online portfolio that you can easily access.

Take a good look at their own site and other sites they've created. Do the sites look professional? Is the style of the designer something you would like to have on your own site? In addition, you can contact companies that have had their site designed and ask them about their experience with this designer.

Price
Another thing to consider, although this is not the top priority, is price. Although there is no clear-cut rule as to what an "average" price for web design is, this is one situation where, in most cases, you get what you pay for. This is simply not the time to cut corners. So in considering price, also consider that you are paying for this individual's expertise, as well as their time and experience.

It is more important to create a successful site that has a good position in the search engine and one that you are very happy with the look and function of than to save a couple of bucks. If you get a good site, your site will be able to grow with your company and, hopefully, that's for a very long time.

Search engine optimization
The number one mistake that most first time web site owners make is that they don't know what to do with their site after it's designed. It is very possible to have a beautiful site designed for you and no one ever sees it.

A good designer will not only help you create a professional looking site, they will also ensure that your site gets a good ranking with the search engines so that your site can be easily found online. Make sure that your designer will optimize your site for the search engines and submit it to the major search engines.

Specialized services
Will you be selling your products or services online? Will you need a database driven site? How about Flash or embedded video or audio? Not everyone offers these services; be sure to ask specifically about what you will need for your site.

A couple of other things to consider is web hosting and domain name registration. Make sure if you need these services that your designer can help provide them too.

Compatibility
Lastly, when you are talking to potential designers, it should be someone you seem compatible with. Does the designer seem friendly and are they willing to answer all of your questions? Do they respond promptly to your emails and/or phone calls? Basically, is this someone you "click" with?

Communication with your designer is crucial. You need someone who is willing to answer any questions and keep you up-to-date on the status of your web design. A good designer will keep in touch with you every few days, at least. You don't want to get down to the final days of creating the site only to find out you don't like it.

Testimonials
Most designers will have testimonials from previous clients on their web site. It's a good idea to see what their customers are saying about their services, and again, calling one or two clients regarding this web designer's services is a really good idea.

Summary
There are many factors involved in finding and picking the right designer to build your company's web site, but the key is to remember that this is your business image, one that you hope to have for many years to come, so you want to pick your designer as you would pick a real estate agent to find your "dream house". If you pick the right designer the first time, you won't be looking for someone to redesign your site in 6-9 months.

Be thorough, ask questions, look at samples, and you'll find the perfect web designer for you!

About the author: Teri Tucker is owner of T&I Grafix Business Web Design, a full service web design company that offers custom web design, logo design, search engine optimization, Flash animation and web consulting services. For more information on our design services, please visit our web site at http://www.tigrafix.com or email us at teri@tigrafix.com.

Now that you have your structure established, you can unleash your creative genius.

What kind of navigation buttons do you want? Would animations, photos or diagrams help get your message across? What sort of layout do you prefer? How will customers navigate through your site? While keeping in mind a few basic guidelines for attractive design, feel free to experiment and be creative with the look and feel of your site. It may help to draw your ideas on paper first. Decide which colors you want to use. Do you already have an attractive logo on your advertising, letterhead or business cards? Use it. Try to visualize any graphics you want to liven up your content. You may be able to find suitable images in an off-the-shelf clip art collection or on the web at one of the clip art repositories. Depending on the size of your company or business and your priorities, you may also want to consider paying a design professional to create the graphics for your site. Alternatively, you could invest some time and money buying and learning to use one of the many commercially available image editing programs.

Most websites utilize some variations of the same two or three layouts. the most common is a left navigation setup, in which you place logos and graphics along the top of the page, include links and navigation buttons along the left hand side, and place content below to the right. This layout draws attention to your logo while keeping navigation in a set position. another common layout places both graphics and navigation links along the top of the page. focusing activity and attention at the top and creating more room for content below.

Before you get carried away with your newly found design freedom, however, remember that there are a few widely accepted design rules to keep in mind.

*Make your site easy on the eyes. Use high contrast colors, dark text on a light background is easier to read. Patterned background designs, though an old popular one, are usually more distracting than appealing. You don't want your customers to skip reading about your big sale just because they can't stomach the dancing teddy bears behind the text.

*Make your site easy to navigate. Place your links or buttons in a prominent place and keep them in the same place on every page. Your design should help users access the information you want then to see. To this end, keep your colors, layout and buttons consistent. Label every page so customers always know where they are. Every page should provide links back to the homepage.

*Make your site professional and appropriate for your company or business. Your design, no less than your content, should support, compliment and promote your business and its products or services. Keep the design clean and simple. Remember, when it comes to design, white space is beautiful and less is more, unless you have a very unique product or service that is well served by something more avant-garde.

*Check out the other guys. When it comes to design, you'll find that a little time spent looking at what other companies are doing will pay off handsomely, you'll discover for yourself what works and what doesn't. There are, unfortunately, millions of poorly designed websites on the internet - look for them and learn from their mistakes.

*Write your content. Only after you've defined your goals and fully planned out your site should you actually begin to create your content. Avoid the temptation to just sit down and start creating web pages. If you hold off until you've got a good plan in place, you'll save yourself a huge amount of time and effort in the long run.

Use your site plan or diagram to identify every page that will be on your website. You can number them, name them or find another way of listing them that works for you. You should already know generally what each page will contain (contact information, list of services, FAQ, products, photos, etc...). Now you need to decide exactly what you want on each page. Write all the text that should go on each page. Indicate where you want graphics or photos located. Create captions and sidebars. Organize each page around your navigation scheme, and plug in content where it fits.

*Make it short and sweet. Studies have repeatedly shown that internet users have a short attention span for text on the web. Few things on the internet are more intimidating and less inviting than a long page of text scrolling down into the distance. With few exceptions (articles, white papers or other publications), avoid long, uninterrupted word masses. Break up your content with visuals and decorations. Better yet, be concise. Customers aren't looking for dissertations on your products and services, they just need enough information to make an intelligent decision.

*Avoid scrollbars. Sometimes you'll need to make your visitors scroll down the page a bit in order to see all your content. But if you have to scroll down more than an extra page height, it's a good indication that you have enough to split between several pages. This will give your visitors manageable chunks of text and keep them interacting with your site.

*Check, double check and triple check. Few things are more unprofessional than poorly written or misspelled text on your business website. And inaccurate information is even worse. Nothing will destroy your credibility more quickly than misstating the facts. Read through everything you create, have someone else proofread it, and run the text through a spell checker. Because not every web editing program includes one, you might want to create your content in a word processor and then copy your finished text into your web pages.

*Gather the site's components. After creating your content, gather all of your site's files together. If you've identified logos, buttons, photos or other graphics that you want to include, either create or collect the specific files you want to use and store them in a folder on your PC. Save the text you've written in the same folder. Keeping your content in one place will save you time and frustration when you are actually building your site.

*Create the pages. You're finally ready to make some web pages. you will most likely be creating your entire website in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), so picking up an elementary understanding of the technology behind your site wouldn't hurt. Basically, HTML is a programming language that gives instructions to an internet browser, telling it how to display text and images. You've already created that text and collected those images, all you have left to do is arrange them on each page and define their appearance.

When creating your pages, follow two crucial rules of smart technology implementation.

1. Products should drive technology, not vice versa. When creating your web pages keep both your audience and your business objective in mind. The features you include and the technology you utilize should be appropriate to target your audience. Don't waste time and energy on bells and whistles that your customers won't appreciate or can't take advantage of. If you sell old fashioned widgets to a nontechnical customer base, your visitors probably aren't interested in your prowess at creating cute scrolling messages on-screen. They just want to know if you sell the best widgets at the lowest price. At the same time, howver, you should be prepared to take advantage of whatever technical enhancements suit your business needs. If you sell services that could benefit from the creation collaborative and interactive community areas for your site with discussion boards, mailing lists and online customer surveys.

2.Speed is everything. Make a conscious effort to limit file sizes and keep download times to a minimum. Most web editing programs will estimate page load times, and you can test them yourself (use dial up connection to test) once you've posted each page to the web on your personal host server or your own. Everyone who has surfed the internet has experienced the frustration of sitting around waiting for a site to load. Don't be that site. Optimize all of your images on your site for web delivery, reuse navigation buttons and logos wherever possible (this will improve page speed because the files have already been loaded once), and keep each page small enough to load quickly.

About the Author
Steven Boaze, Danville, Virginia. United States
owner@boaze.com
http://www.Boazepublishing.biz
Steven Boaze (CEO) is The Owner of The Corporate Headquarters Boaze.com Which houses and controls four companies (Web Development Technology - webdevelopmenttechnology.com ) (Boaze Publishing - boazepublishing.biz )(Business Marketing Guide-businessmarketingguide.com)(Ezine Remedy-ezineremedy.com) Steven is also the author of "Hidden Secrets To Business Marketing" Ebook along with numerous articles on Marketing and Advertising published by Boaze Publishing. Copyright (c) 1998-2003 Boaze.com

By David Leonhardt

If you are a webmaster or a website owner and have not yet used server side includes (SSI), I am about to make your life soooo much easier. SSI can save you a lot of time updating your site. Set them up right at the beginning and you will be forever grateful that somebody thought up SSI.

In this article we will look at what SSI is, why it makes life so easy, and exactly how to set up SSI on your website...and then I'll share two little bonus tricks I've discovered.

What is SSI?

SSI actually covers a number of features to improve your website. I am going to speak here of just one critical improvement, referred to as an "include" file.

Essentially, an "include" file is a separate file that your web page can include as if it was part of the page file. Let's take a real-life example. The Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store uses SSI in a number of places.

If you are used to using FrontPage or have recently learned HTML, you probably assume that every web page is a single html file. The example above is actually five files. There is the main HTML file for the page. There is a style sheet (CSS) and there are three SSI "include" files -- one for the left navigation menu and two for the two navigation menus across the bottom. I could have, perhaps even should have, used more "include" files, but you can be the judge when you've finished reading this article.

Why use SSI?

SSI makes it easy to bring changes to your website. There are some changes you will need to make to every page or to every page in a specific section. Your website might start out with just 10 pages, and you might figure that it is no big deal to cut-and-paste a change to the navigation menu 10 times. But each time you add a page, you have to update that menu. And with each new page added, you have to paste one more time. When you reach 50 pages (Never thought your website would grow that big? You're not alone.) it becomes very tedious to update.

For instance, when I wanted to add the website monitoring logo and the link to the navigation menu at TheHappyGuy.com, I had to change just one file, and -- presto! -- the change appeared on every page of the site bearing that navigation menu. It was so very much easier than past updates before I began using SSI.

There are two other benefits to SSI "include" files. Because a single line of code replaces what might have been several dozen in each HTML file, your files are much smaller, taking less space on your server. And, because the "include" file has already been loaded with the first page a visitor sees, the next page is much quicker for visitors to load.

How to set up SSI?

You need three things to set up SSI.

4. Configure your server for SSI
5. Set up your "include" file
6. Call up your "include" file into your web page HTML file

If your server has been set up for SSI, you are one step closer. If it has also been set up to parse .html extensions to read SSI, you are two steps closer.

Not all hosts support SSI, but most do. If yours does, but it has not been set up for your account, look for the .htaccess file in your root directory (where your index.html or home page file is stored). In my experience, this is not usually viewable using an FTP process; you have to find it through your control panel.

The .htaccess file is a text file. If you do not already have an .htaccess file on your server, you can create one in NotePad or even in Word (just save it with a .txt extension), but whatever you do, make sure not to write over a .htaccess file already on your server. If it is already there, just add the following lines to the file, being careful not to erase anything that is already there:

AddType text/html .shtml AddHandler server-parsed .shtml Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes

So add this line. In theory, it should be the second line, but careless me has gotten it to work at the end, too:

AddHandler server-parsed .html

As an aside, there are several ways to configure your server for SSI. This one has worked for me across several hosts.

So much for the techie stuff, now you need the second element: the "include" file itself. Suppose your "include" file is the navigation menu. You don't need "head" and "title" and "body" tags. Just type in your text and code just the way it would appear in your webpage. It's that simple. Save it as an HTML file, and load it to your route directory or to its own directory.

All you need now, is to call up your navigation menu in each file you want it to appear in. To do this, a simple line suffices where a whole column of code and text once stood.

Here is the line to place in your code:

<!--#include virtual="nav1.html" -->

<!--#include virtual="/nav/nav1.html" -->

Bonus SSI Tip #1

You don't need to stuff everything into a single SSI file. What if some elements you want on some pages and others not? Let me offer two examples of situations that call for splitting the SSI "include" file in two.

The first is on my vitamin site. Return to The Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store and look at the links across the bottom. The first row is typical website stuff: contact, privacy, etc., which one wants access to from every page of the site. The second is the links directory, which a webmaster does not typically want linked from every page. For example, see the bottom of this article on calcium and dieting. The row of links directory is not there.

The second example is this article on search engine tips. Notice again that there are two different navigation consoles. The first is generic to the site, the second is specific to that section of the site. So a second SSI "include" file, using just one additional line of code, can provide interlinking for the section, without affecting other sections of the website. This is very handy for large sites.

Bonus SSI Tip #2

You can also use an SSI "include" file to hide some of your source code. I will show you a ridiculously simple way to do this.

There are at least two legitimate reasons why somebody might want to hide parts of their code. The most obvious would be if you are running a proprietary script. The second is if you are running a script that displays content, but shows up as a script in the source code. This was my challenge.

At the bottom of the navigation menu at my personal growth articles page, there is a "Happiness Quote of the Day". In fact, it is a random quote that reloads when the page reloads. I had included the random-text script in the SSI "include" file, but the search engines were seeing the script in the source code, not the text that human visitors were seeing. So I placed the script in its own "include" file, which I inserted like this into the main "include" file:

<!--#include virtual="randomfile.php" -->

To sum up, SSI "includes" can save you time and headaches when changes need to be made to your site, plus they reduce the file size and increase the loading time of your pages. Once you've set up the server to read SSI, all you need to do is create an "include" file and call it up in your web page using one line of code.

I can hardly believe I wasted so much time cutting and pasting before I learned about SSI. You won't believe it either!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Leonhardt is a freelance writer, and an online and offline publicity specialist. Contact him at: Info@TheHappyGuy.com. Pick up a copy of Don't Get Banned By The Search Engines or his media relations plan for small business or learn how to promote your website with an ezine newsletter.

Ready for your new website? Let's see..

Domain name registration..Check.

Hosting plan... Check.

Aesthetic cues... Check.

Objectives... Wait, what objectives?

Out of 10 business owners we meet, 8 developed their corporate websites with no objectives in mind. And because these websites were designed with no objectives and goals to meet, they quickly fall into the category of non-performing websites.

Non-Performing Websites (a.k.a 2-Enquiries-Per-Year Websites)

These poorly-designed websites usually offer little or no value to business owners. Often, the objectives behind such sites is simply to have a web presence, since every other business has one. What business owners do not realize is that a website and how its contents are presented often reflect directly on the business. If the last time you updated your website was 2 years ago, any visitor who happens to pop by your site will, within seconds, bounce off to another site, very likely never to return again. How could you blame them if you are not sincere and committed to providing potential customers with up-to-date information? Remember that maintaining a website requires time and commitment, so be prepared to put in the hours (or finances) before going into development.

Web Design Guidelines

Now, you're mentally prepared for what's coming your way (oh, it won't be THAT bad), we'll share the 3 primary guidelines for your web design.

Guideline 1: Your Website Must Meet Your Business Objectives

What is the purpose of setting up your website? It may be that you want:

• To generate leads and enquiries
• A plaftorm to sell a product or service(ecommerce)
• A platform to capture and manage your visitor data

Once you have identified the main objective of your website, keep it in mind and base all your web development decisions around it.

Guideline 2: The Big V

Something happened in 2004. 'Coolness' was no longer the determining factor of websites. Business started to see that there was something else that made visitors return to their website frequently and eventually convert to customers. Visitors wanted the first thing that we're taught in business school; Value. Your business exists in this financial turmoil for many reasons. Sound financial planning, strong management team, and of course your business is good at what it does. Make sure your website is able to convey this message of strength and expertise to your visitors.

Guideline 3: It Doesn't End With the Launch of Your Website

People don't build boats for the sake of building boats (ok, maybe some do, but they shouldn't!). They build boats to sail. With the completion and launch of your website, you now have an effective tool in which to market your products and services. Think about what marketing initiatives you are planning to embark on and make sure that your website is designed to support these initiatives. Will you be able to use your website as a tool to track your online marketing effort? Will you then be able to use these data to fine tune your offerings and increase the return on marketing? Now, you see what we mean by good web design!

Marketing is Internet Marketing is Marketing

The basics of marketing on the internet differ little from traditional marketing. Business owners are conscious about maintaining their image, providing prompt and good service and going the extra mile; so as to increase brand recall and profits. Sometimes, all businesses need to do is to duplicate this effort using the internet as a medium and they may find that as with all good marketing, they get to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Author Bio:
Alan Lee is a contributor and analyst at Antidote Visual Communication. Coming from an economics background, he helps businesses find the simplest ways to meet their online marketing objectives. Read more about his work on http://www.antidote.com.sg