Web Site Development
We follow a simple philosophy in Web Site Development. It does not only help you bringing your message up, it also gives you better results from the start.
“Less is more. Keep it simple and to the point. Don't distract your visitors.”
Your goal is to create a Web site that performs well. To achieve that, you best start thinking about the needs of your target group and how they relate to your products or services. Based on this assessment, you can start developing the message, the content. Yes, this brings you back to marketing, unless you want a site that does not care about marketing. But you already have done your marketing homework haven't you. Distill your message to the essence.
Content, Design, and Graphics
Build your site optimally around the content. Let it flow naturaly and give the user a clear idea of navigation. It is always best to be a bit conservative, when it comes to apply state-of-the-art dynamic coding, flash, etc. You do not want to lock anybody out, do you.
A basically liquid design without too much dynamic elements and JavaScript will do very good for the start. During your online presence you will learn about your audience and you may want to tune in your Web technologies more.
Great tips for webmasters are published by www.w3.org (↑).
Usability Engineering
Usability has become a central attribute for the quality of Web sites and software in general. Profit from general usability guidelines and apply specific “usability engineering” to your Web Site. There are some simple, and effective tools available for evaluation during an iterative design process. The reward will be happier Web site users, higher loyality, and higher sales — if you are running a commercial site. Better usability results in higher return on investment (ROI) and high profits.
Search Optimization (SEO)
Last but not least a word about search optimization (SEO). Search engines are a key factor for driving targeted traffic — and therefore prospects — to your Web site. A very good reason for complying with major search engines' requirements. See it as “usability engineering towards search engines”. But in fact it also improves usability for your human users. They will find your site that provides great a solution for their problem quicker and easier. It also helps you to stay tuned to the users' actual language. Since we feel that usability and search engine optimization are related we have written an article about it: ”Synergy from Usability and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)“.
Probably the best long term strategy as stated by Google™ is,
“Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, ... ” (*)
(*) www.google.com/support/ (↑)
Software Development
Once you need more interactivity with your Web visitors, then you need more than simple HTML coding or feeding to an content management system (CMS). Be it on the client side with JavaScript or on the server side with CGI and for example PERL, PHP, Phyton, etc. — that is where the software development starts.
Contact us now for getting started quickly with our consulting or coaching or continue reading about Project Management.
