Designing Your Web Site to Drive Business
Creating a commercial Web site takes much more than programming. An effective Web site is a combination of quality content, intuitive navigation, appropriate graphics and user-friendly technology. With Internet traffic growing 300 percent in 2001-a trend expected to continue through 2002-and world Internet sales nearing $62 billion, you can't afford a poorly designed Web site.
While getting "hits" is one goal of a business Web site, another more important goal is creating a Web site with enough value that users become repeat visitors. The following ideas will take time to implement, but they will have a significant impact on the success of your Web site and your business.
1. Define Your Goals
Start to define your goals and objectives by creating a site specification, which will become the design document for your site. This document can be as brief as a couple of paragraphs. The first question to ask yourself is "What do I want to gain from this Web site?" Consider such things as how you want to describe your services, how to position your professional and clinical staff and how to attract referral sources. Other, more technical considerations include offering a search capability, offering customer service support through an e-mail link, and providing links to professional organizations, newsgroups and trade associations.
While your ultimate goal will be to grow your business, your specific objectives might range from communicating information to your patients and referral sources, to increasing awareness of your clinical services or on-line retailing. Be sure that you have a specific set of business objectives, other than just having a Web site because the home care provider across town has an online presence as well.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
The second question to ask yourself is "What do my visitors want to gain from going to my site?" Most of your visitors will be searching for specific information. This could range from something simple, like your hours of operation or location, to something more complex like the professional credentials of your clinical team, or an on-line product in-service. Regardless of their motives, your visitors will form an opinion about your company and may make a direct comparison to your competitors.
To appeal to your target audience and hold their attention, you first need to learn more about their needs. If possible, analyze your target audience and produce a short definition or profile of your intended user. Are you targeting physicians, nurses or case managers? Alternatively, are you attempting to attract patients and their families? What unique offering will cause your intended user to stay on your site and visit again? Will you offer a basic description of your services or provide more sophisticated patient education information? Other major considerations should include your target audience's computer skills and their Internet connection speed.
3. Identify Your Content, Graphics and Technical Challenges
Content is king. Well, yes and no. One of the most compelling benefits of the Internet is that it provides reach (a mass audience) as well as richness (high quality content). While valuable content may bring visitors to your site, static content will cause them to go elsewhere. If your content doesn't change, your users will not return. Your goal is to determine what content your visitors want, then provide it and follow up with fresh content to keep them coming back.
Have you had enough of that video spy camera popping up on your screen? Are you tired of being overwhelmed by graphics that flash, whirl, and bounce? So are your customers. The search engine Google recently refused to accept pop-up advertisements after receiving so many complaints about annoying, intrusive graphics. Graphics take time to download and download times rule the Web. Even with the spread of broadband, many users still have access speeds in the neighborhood of 28.8 kbps. Research has shown that users lose attention if the download takes more than 10 seconds. Plan your graphics to add meaning to your content, not to showcase your webmaster's programming skills.
You can offer cool Java applets, but they won't work if your audience has an older browser. A multimedia product demonstration may be perfect for some audiences, but it may leave some visitors running for the TV set. Tailor your technology to fit the computer capabilities of your target audience.
4. Choose a Capable Hosting Provider
One of the most important choices you will make when building your Web site is the Web hosting service. This is the company that hosts your site on a server, making it available over the Internet. Prices and services differ, so it pays to do some competitive shopping. One of the most important factors is matching your server space and technical requirements with the hosting service's capabilities and hosting packages. For example, do you need support for multimedia or e-commerce applications? Even something as seemingly simple as support for an online response form is not always included in a starter Web hosting package. If your site is small, you will probably be looking at a shared service platform. A larger, more complex site with database applications and significant traffic might be better on a dedicated platform to optimize performance and availability. Also, check with other users before selecting a hosting provider. Find out if they have experienced availability problems, such as when users can't access the site. While a temporary and infrequent access problem is normal and not necessarily a hosting problem, repeated access problems mean you should look elsewhere.
5. Select Your Title, META Tags and Keywords
Some search engines read only the contents of your title for Web site information, so be sure that your title accurately conveys what your site offers. The contents of your title also will appear in the bookmarks or favorites list of your user. A META tag allows your webmaster to specify information about your Web site. Search engines use this information to rank and catalog your Web site. A keyword is a word or phrase that a user types into a search engine query to find a Web site. Keyword selection is critical because keywords will determine if a search engine will select your Web site in response to a user's search.
6. Get Your Web Site Searched
Other than knowing your Universal Resource Locator (URL) in advance, your users will use a search engine to locate your site. Search engines like AltaVista, Google, Lycos and WebCrawler search and index Web sites in a catalog, somewhat like a big phone book. Some search engines classify sites by hand, meaning that humans review a site submission. Most search engines classify Web sites using computer programs. There are many ways to get your URL listed on search engines. One way is to visit some of the popular search engine sites and submit your URL. Some search engines require an upfront fee to list your Web site. Regardless of your search engine strategy, it is important to periodically return to key search engine sites and search for your Web site name.
7. Create a hook
In addition to creating great content, there are a number of strategies you can use to get users to return to your site. Your objective should not be to just get a volume of hits but to add enough value to the to the site so that the user returns. One effective technique is to offer a frequently asked questions page devoted to answering basic product in-service questions. Your clinical audience will not only appreciate the quick access to information, but they may return for other unrelated services. Depending on your target audience, you also can establish links to other Web sites such as The American Heart Association, the Centers for Disease Control or your state medical equipment supply association. Make sure the sites you link to are appropriate for your target audience and that you have permission for the link.
8. Brand Your Web Site
Do you remember the TV commercial about the person who tried to trademark the "dot" in dotcom? He failed because his branding strategy was too general. Even though the commercial was a joke, it illustrated an important concept in Internet branding. To be generic is to fail. Although your Web site may have rich visual images, they will not bring users to your site. When your prospective user searches for your site, he or she types in a word or phrase, not a color or logo. The leading on-line auction site is not auction.com, its eBay. Try entering the word "auction" in a search engine. Hundreds of sites will be returned. Type in eBay and see what happens.
Because homecare is a unique blend of managing and tracking products and supporting those products with patient services, your problem is even more challenging.
Services, those things you do every day to benefit your patients, are intangible. To make your services meaningful to your referral sources, your patients and the community, you need to make them tangible through an effective branding strategy. This requires blending basic marketing skills-from developing a corporate image, competitive market intelligence, and an effective copywriting and trademarking strategy, to supporting your hard work with public relations, testimonials and community outreach programs.
9. Promote Your Web Site
Even though the Internet is the most powerful communication medium since the printing press, your Web site will not succeed without an effective marketing plan. Once you have an effective search engine strategy, and you have established links with related sites, your next step is to advertise your Web site through traditional mediums. Your Web address should be on every piece of sales collateral, business cards, ads, catalogs, letters, announcements, e-mail, everything. Consider a press release about your new Web site after it is up and running smoothly. If you sponsor a health fair or breast cancer-screening program with a local hospital, place a banner with your domain name over your booth. The key to successful Web site promotion is consistency and repetition in your message.
10.Test, Refine and Update Content
Once your site is up and running on the Internet you can't take it back like a brochure. It is "out there" in cyber space, or loaded on someone's hard drive. Your image and reputation are available on the Internet for all to see and evaluate. Even though you have tested your site during the design process, it is a good idea to make sure that the links work, that the pages load, and that your visitors can navigate without getting lost. This can be as simple as asking some typical users to try your site and provide comments, to a sophisticated usability study. Refine your content and navigation based on user feedback. Have you accomplished your original goals and objectives? Have you created a professional image? Have you differentiated yourself from the competition? Do your users have a clear understanding of your products and services? Will they recommend your site to other referral sources, clinicians, friends and patients? Fortunately, unlike a brochure with a typo, a Web site is inexpensive to edit and update.
Plan for Web site content and design changes on a regular basis. A static site will not draw return visitors. Give your visitors a reason to return by making your content accessible, current and useful. A well-designed Web site requires a commitment of time, money and staff resources. When you have the site established, maintenance is straightforward. Once you have the repeat users, the increased business won't be far behind.
This article originally appeared in the June 2002 issue of HME Business.