Understanding what makes your website work

All website owners should have a plan for getting their site back online in case of an emergency. To develop an effective emergency plan, you must first understand what services are required to ensure that your website works properly. The resource provided below provides a template for reviewing your website service providers. For each area of service there is a check box to indicate if this service or product is “mission critical”. By mission critical, I mean that without the service or product your website is useless. This is step 1 in developing a plan. For each area of service, you will want to note the vendor or person providing (supporting) the service or product. This will be helpful later as you assess your level of vulnerability and as you develop a backup plan for each.

The Resource

Step 1: Developing a Website Emergency Plan
The Website Information Worksheet

Kishau Rogers

Kishau Rogers is the President and Founder of Websmith Group, a web application development company. Her mission is to connect businesses with the information and technologies necessary to meet their goals EFFECTIVELY. Kishau Rogers holds a Computer Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and has over sixteen years of experience, which includes web, application and database development. Kishau also speaks, blogs, and writes articles to educate organizations and entrepreneurs on resources and best practices for ensuring effective, dynamic and innovation web solutions.

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What's Your Website Personality?

Personality is what makes us unique. Like humans, every website has a personality. Also, like humans, there are many factors that contribute to your websites personality.   Your site design and content are two factors that are important in creating a strong first impression.

DESIGN

Your website design contributes greatly to creating the first impression for your visitors.  This includes the colors, layout, fonts and imagery.  Imagine if you could wear your website to a networking event.   What kind of impression do you think you would make?

1. Style:  What’s your color palette?  Are you wearing earth tones?  Subtle neutrals?  Classic colors with a bit of flair?  Or do you appear as if you’ve just left a Cirque du Soleil show … and you were the feature act?
2. Appearance:  Are you well put together or a disheveled mess?   Are you wearing your clothing in an unexpected fashion (ex: wearing your pants backwards or not wearing any pants at all)?
3. Bells & Whistles:  Are you wearing lots of accessories?  Or none at all?
4. The X Factor:  Are you wearing an outfit straight “off the rack” adding little “flair” of your own?  Or are you wearing ‘one of a kind’, custom made attire?

Generally there aren’t any wrong answers.   However, you will want to consider your target audience and their expectations when evaluating your design personality.  If you’re selling widgets to accountants, it may not be effective to have a circus-inspired website, unless you are bound & determined to stand by that brand because well … you’re THAT GUY.   To create a strong presence, it is important that your website design is compatible with you and your business brand.

CONTENT

The purpose of website content is to communicate information to your visitors.  The language and tone used in your website content will convey a specific personality to your visitors.   Let’s imagine that you’re introduced to a potential customer in person and they ask “Who are you and can you help me?”  Imagine that you respond by reading the information on your home page.   What kind of impression do you think you would make?

1. Have you said too much?  Too little?
2. Did you introduce yourself or did you start with a sales pitch?
3. Did you ask the customers any questions about them or their needs?
4. Did you express well focused ideas?  Or did you ramble about 3 or 4 unrelated ideas, products or services?
5. What was your tone?  Straight-forward?  Blunt?  Informal?
6. Did the potential customer not hear anything said because your outfit was too distracting?

As they say “content is king.”   You lose the ability to connect with your visitors by saying the wrong thing or by not saying the right things.   You want to create a connection with your visitors that makes them want to learn more about you and your business.  Otherwise, you’re just another face in the crowd with a sales pitch.  When writing your content, be sure to think like your target customer.  How much of your content is dedicated to customer-focused content?  How much of your content is dedicated to tooting your own horn?   You certainly want to sell yourself and your business, but not at the risk of disengaging your customers.   So, who is the focus of your conversation?  You?  Or your customers?

HOMEWORK

Evaluate your existing website.  Is your website design compatible with your actual personality or business brand?   Does your website content convey your ideas in a manner similar to how you would present them in person?

This is only the first step to building a website with an authentic personality.   Your website is just one of the tools that you will use to engage your customers and to facilitate an ongoing relationship.

Make a strong first impression.

Kishau Rogers

Kishau Rogers is the President and Founder of Websmith Group, a web application development company. Her mission is to connect businesses with the information and technologies necessary to meet their goals EFFECTIVELY. Kishau Rogers holds a Computer Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and has over sixteen years of experience, which includes web, application and database development. Kishau also speaks, blogs, and writes articles to educate organizations and entrepreneurs on resources and best practices for ensuring effective, dynamic and innovation web solutions.

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How to link to a recommended website

If your website includes a listing of links to recommended websites, take the time to provide the following information to your website visitors:

1. The title/name of the website/organization
2. A brief description of the website
3. A reason for the recommendation (i.e. how does this external website benefit your website visitors and existing customers?)
4. The actual website address (www.xyz.com)

If your recommended website listing is extensive, for increased usability, you should organize the links by industry and/or purpose.  Providing more detail about the websites that you’re linking to gives your recommendations increased credibility. Also, remember that your site visitors are real people. If someone walks into your physical business location, you wouldn’t slide them a post-it note with a www address on it .. not without some explanation.

ONGOING REVIEW TIP: Be sure to check your recommended links often to ensure that the websites are still active.

Kishau Rogers

Kishau Rogers is the President and Founder of Websmith Group, a web application development company. Her mission is to connect businesses with the information and technologies necessary to meet their goals EFFECTIVELY. Kishau Rogers holds a Computer Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and has over sixteen years of experience, which includes web, application and database development. Kishau also speaks, blogs, and writes articles to educate organizations and entrepreneurs on resources and best practices for ensuring effective, dynamic and innovation web solutions.

Website - Twitter - More Posts