How to Create a Successful Web Site

Recently, we watched John respond to a client's request to create and put up a web site in less than one hour. While already a legend of visionary ability in database marketing and the manipulation of direct marketing data and names (and one of the highest integrity individuals in the industry), John is heading for another Authurian reputation as the Chief Knight of the Court of Web Creators.

Here are John's foundational principles for successful web site creation (if you need more than an hour, it's OK):

• Deliver Value at your site. Don't try to attract the surfers or the "what's cool" hip forum folk. You are presenting a business; business rules still apply. The person who stops and focuses on you is going to be focusing on the value you are offering, not the "slickness" or "coolness" of your presentation. You still have to give them something that answers the ageless and universal question, "What's in it for me?"
• Provide information at your site. Most sites don't offer real information, but look like an ad meant to tease rather than inform. The all-too-common - and wrong - strategy is to draw attention to the web site through advertising; give the interested person a little more teasing at the web site; then get a name so you can send a traditional catalog or traditional brochure through the mail. That's really dumb! You've already get them at your web site - load em up with information NOW, not later!
• WWW pages should impart an impression of "You have found us!" Make the discovery an event and give them as much as they wish to take from your value-laden information treasure trove. Don't skimp on the initial "discovery." Remember, it's very easy to de-discover any web site. With potentially millions of these things, its little different from good Yellow Pages design. Hit em hard, give them solid information, deliver value and benefits. Don't just give them another fancy brochure. You can do that in the mail, and that's what you've been doing for years anyway.
• Value your visitor's time. Most likely, your web site browsers will be coming from Yahoo or Lycos rather than bouncing around through the web. They still have very limited time, especially the ones who are potentially the best clients or customers. Avoid the biggest mistake of web site creation: No immediate benefit. Put your key benefit at the top of your home page and load every page that follows with key benefit statements that are bold and immediately understandable. To put up a slow, fancy logo followed by a welcome statement is the kiss of death. That only encourages the already restless surfer to move on as fast as possible. Time has altered on the web. Nobody waits for another slow, fancy graphic. Put up bold, benefit-oriented WORDS and they will read!
• Keep your graphics bold and small. Bigger graphics are not better on the web. They take too much download time and too much "screen." Small, powerful, simple graphics that support value-laden, information-dense WORDS OF BENEFIT work better than anything else. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but you've first got to answer the question, "What's in it for me?"
• Answer the web site searcher's question in the first two inches of your web pages. If you can't crystallize your benefit in the first two inches, nobody is going to look much further. This is the exact same phenomenon as channel surfing with the TV remote. Either you grab em RIGHT NOW or they slide on by ... perhaps like a comet in the heavens ... never to return.

John Miglautsch may be reached at mig@execpc.com or W226 N555 Eastmound Drive, Suite E, Waukesha, WI 53186; tel (414) 542-5633; fax (414) 542-2066.

Donald R. Libey is a marketing futurist, consultant, speaker and author. His is president of Libey Inc. in Haddon Heights, N.J., consultants to senior management and experts in direct marketing, catalog development and copywriting.