Setting up a web-site can be an interesting project.
We’ve recently completed the first phase of our world-wide-web site, and are experiencing first hand some of the challenges of the new information super highway.
First, all of your basic marketing and corporate communications concepts and policies come into play. Questions like;
- How much should we put on the WEB?
- What about confidential information our customers should be able to access but not our competitors?
- What about references to our strategic partners (customers and vendors alike) who may not want their name splattered around the world?
- How do you handle requests for information from outside your normal geographic area?
- How do you deal with corporate dis-information that could be spread by un-reputable competitors about your firm.
The best advice I can give, is simply give it a go and be prepared to change and roll with the punches as they occur. The very nature of the medium is one of change. What you put up one your site today can be changed tomorrow. And it is this change of information by definition that make your site useful, and draws people back to your site.
Think of your WEB page as a really fancy yellow pages ad. But one that you can change without having to recall, reprint and redistribute thousands of phone books! Better yet, you’re not limited by column inches or number of words, or monochrome colors. You’re limited by only your imagination, budget, and competence of your web master.
And yes, it’s a good idea to contract the construction of your web site to a professional web master. While the creative authoring work is best done by yourself, the physical construction and maintenance of a web-site is challenging even for those of us who work in the field full-time. Animated icons, pdf files, java versus active-X, Microsoft vs Netscape, and to do frames or not are just some of the decisions to be made by a competent web master. And, knowing how to apply these concepts can greatly affect the overall effectiveness of your site. Let a pro do it for you.
The next best advice I can give is give yourself a deadline. You can fiddle and tweak the thing to death, and never get anything up if you don’t pick a spot, call it done (for now) and release it. You can always update it again next week.
And the final piece of advice I can give, is don’t take your site too seriously. You may be a serious business, doing important work, but the web appreciates and rewards those with a sense of humor and the occasional wink. It’s not just an ad, it’s an adventure! Have fun with it.
Do call if you’re looking for a web-master to construct your site. We’ve got two experienced web-masters on staff already, and we can get your site up and running pronto.
Consider our shingle hung, we’re open for business!