Your Web site is important. It establishes the credibility of your business. Having a Web site is now more important than having a listing in the phonebook. It is a requirement for a credible, established business.

And not just any Web site. A bad Web site hurts your professional image.

What to look for in a professional Web site

The criteria for a professional Web site can be expressed with these requirements: esthetic, ease-of-use, writing quality/content, search engine optimization, technical implementation and that the content addresses your intended audience. Additionally, in designing your Web site you should think about how to drive customers to purchase your product or service (if applicable).

Audience

The first thing you want users of your Web site to know is that the Web site is for them. You must know your intended audience, and in the first page, you must make sure your intended audience realizes that your Web site is the site they should visit.

Your home page should indicate in some way what your business does and the scope of provided services.

Even the tone of writing and the type of artwork on your site is dependent on your audience. Think friendly vs. conservative, conversational vs. factual, etc.

Ease of use in navigation

Have you ever gotten lost in a Web site? Or have you been frustrated that you cannot find what your are looking for, but you know that it lies somewhere on the site?

In planning your Web site, you need to consider your immediate needs and your long-term intentions. This will help you develop an extensible navigation hierarchy.

For smaller Web sites, a "flat" hierarchy is most accessible (all links accessible from all pages).

Larger Web sites may group related menu items together in particular areas on the screen. For instance, in a common layout major categories and administrative function items may be grouped together at the top of the page, and subcategory information on the left side (this is common). Or even drop down menus may aid navigation while maintaining a clean interface.

Last, adding a search function to your Web site is a good additional way for clients to find content on your site. It is expected that large Web sites have search functions.

Writing quality and content

Look to the audience section of this article; your audience is a large factor in what you need to say and how you say it. The scope of your products or services needs to be established as soon as possible, so users know they've come to the site they need.

You should also make your phone number and address very accessible. It is good design practice to put the phone number and address on every Web page in a site. This can be placed in a nonoffensive area such as a footer or header on the page.

Developing a frequently asked questions page is a good idea. A FAQ page can save you time by not having to answer the same questions more than once. In addition, it is important for you to convey as much information as possible (in as orderly a fashion as possible). If your potential customers cannot easily find the information they need on your site, they quickly go to another site.

The content of your site should describe all of your popular and high-cost products and services in detail, if applicable. If you don't list a service, a customer may assume you don't handle the service.

Your entire site should be proofread and spell checked by a professional editor. This is something you don't want to leave up to your secretary.

Your content should include any user support documents. It is acceptable and expected that user documents, manuals, etc. be implemented in pdf format, even though the format has some problems.

Technical implementation

Databases are a necessity when dealing with large amounts of data. However, there are cases where database driven content is more than skill. For instance, one of my restaurant clients wanted to put their menu in a database, and their Web site would pull information from this database. The time to develop this database was at least a scale of magnitude greater than the time it would take to type the menu in html. This was not a good solution for this customer; it would have eaten up their entire marketing budget with little benefit to them.

Your Web site should be accessible for most users. It should be designed with a tool that is cross-tested on many platforms, like Macromedia Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is almost a requirement for good Web site development.

For large sites, your Web development budget can benefit from use of server-side includes or similar techniques. SSI allows your Web developer to change content quickly and have changes apply sitewide. It facilitates extensibility.

Except for manuals and other printable material, try to stay away from pdf files. They are an annoyance to most users. Even on DSL, they take a long time to load and the Adobe Acrobat reader tends to be problematic. Implement your content in html rather than using a pdf file.

In general, stay away from using Macromedia Flash. Not all Web customers will have Flash players installed on their systems, and they will think something is wrong with your Web site if they are prompted to install it upon loading your site. If your Web customers have a certain amount of technical sophistication, then Flash may be appropriate. I have not yet found this to be the case for any Web sites I've developed (more than 150).

Esthetic considerations

You must have a graphic designer or a Web designer who has demonstrated graphic design talents.

Your logo should match the image you want to convey on your Web site. Consider dropping your logo if it does not. Most Web development firms are able to design a logo for use on your Web site.

Your Web site should be viewable on most screen settings. A de facto convention for width is that the Web page should be no more than 800 pixels wide. Scrolling down is acceptable and expected, but scrolling across is a no-no. If this is disregarded, this is one of the key indicators of a nonprofessional Web site.

Do not use animations just to have animations. Although trendy 10 years ago, they are only applicable in very limited circumstances today.

A common mistake in Web sites is the use of mixed fonts. Be consistent in the styles of fonts used to convey particular information. Also, at most you should use two font families, plus perhaps Verdana for very small text. And you should limit your font usage to fonts which are widely available on most platforms (Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Times etc.)

Do not use bad photos. Use of professional photography is a good idea for most Web sites. Photos can be dressed up in Photoshop to a limited extent.

Search engine optimization

A professional Web site should be optimized for major search engines. This may help existing and potential customers find your Web site.

Search engine optimization is a proprietary topic for many web development companies. A general guideline is to have a useful, informative Web site, and exchange links with other sites. The more information on your Web site, the more credible it is to Web users, other Web sites and search engines. Having more information on your site also provides more material for search engines to mine.

Drive customers to purchase

If your customers are in a purchasing mind frame, you should take advantage of this by making it easy for them to contact you or even to purchase items online.

Having the invitation to "contact us with any questions" on your web site seems superfluous, but it establishes an atmosphere open to communication. Use of this invitation is context-sensitive depending on the site's purpose and audience.

Adding a search function to your Web site is advisable if you have a lot of products. This will help customers to shortcut your navigation hierarchy if they have a particular product in mind.

For a company which sells products, it is expected that the products are purchasable online. It is highly frustrating to Web users who have found your site to have to pick up a phone to make a purchase. (Of course, you must make your phone number available, but it should not be the only means by which customers may contact you.)

If you do develop an on-line store, your order checkout process must be secure. Secure certificates are a requirement.

Kathy Walker Kathy Walker has designed more than 150 sites for clients in the Northeast Ohio area. With more than 10 years of software engineering experience and an interest in art and freelance writing, Kathy has a unique set of skills well-suited to converging the diverse requirements for Web site design. Her particular interest lies in creating artistic Web sites. Kathy graduated from the University of Akron with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1999.