Six Key Features of Web Sites that Work

Seasoned etailers realize a Web site is more than just a “billboard in cyberspace.” They know the best sites create inviting, easy-to-use environments. Indeed, they’re interactive tools where prospects and customers can learn about a company and buy products.

To be sure, a Web site is not a technological homage to yourself, your company or a Web designer. That said, however, showy, forever-to-download sites that are cool but little more than impediments to e-commerce are all too common on the Web. Indeed, the Webscape is littered with them. This article will explore how to avoid adding yours to the heap of Web junk.

Usability Rules

“The Web is the ultimate customer-empowering environment. Whoever clicks the mouse gets to decide everything,” says Jakob Nielson, a principal in the Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com), a Web design consultancy. “It’s so easy for customers to just go elsewhere; all the competitors in the world are but a mouse click away.”

When designing or refreshing your site, start with a good authoring tool that enables you to establish a basic site that can be enhanced with specialty design programs. Two authoring tools that get good reviews are Microsoft FrontPage ($138; www.microsoft.com) and DreamWeaver by Macromedia ($326; www.macromedia.com). Many users say the DreamWeaver authoring program has a steeper learning curve than FrontPage, but that the extra effort is worth it. DreamWeaver is seen by its fans as a more versatile Web-authoring tool.

Web designers recommend that every commercial site include the following six key features.

Instant Communication of Purpose

If you’re serious about doing business on the Web, you want your pages to serve up fast and clear. That means instantly communicating what you’re about, and what you can do for site visitors. And it means forgetting about showy splash-page introductions or elaborate animated introductions that take forever to download.

“People often ask me what’s the most important thing they should do to make a Web site easy to use,” says Steve Krug, author of “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common-Sense Approach to Web Usability” (www.newriders.com). “A Web page should be self-evident, obvious and self-explanatory.”

Business-to-business cataloger Henry Schein’s site (www.henryschein.com) is emblematic of Krug’s ideal. It sports a clear mission statement on its home page, with links to major product lines clearly delineated. The site also quick-jumps to more corporate information, company news and investor data. In all, it takes about five seconds to figure out what’s going on there.

Effortless Navigability

Create an intuitive navigation bar that enables visitors to reach key interest areas with a single click. If you have a fairly extensive site, use drop-down menus or similar tools that enable visitors to easily drill down to highly specific categories.

Office Depot (www.officedepot.com) offers extremely easy-to-use navigation, enabling visitors to quickly search by product type, brand, previous shopping list and item number. There’s also a special search function just for printer supplies.

Innovative Use of Visitor Communication Interfaces

Finding ways to enable people to easily communicate on the Web can get you far in business. Once considered an upstart in the 1990s, AOL has zoomed to No. 1 among Internet service providers largely because of its easy-to-use chatrooms.

Many commercial Web sites provide basic communication interactivity by posting e-mail addresses of key personnel and/or offering mailing lists. Experiment with mailing-list technology for free at online services like Yahoo! Groups (groups.yahoo.com), MSN Groups (groups.msn.com) AOL Groups (groups.aol.com) and Topica (www.topica.com).

Meanwhile, other companies feature chatrooms where visitors ask questions about purchases or talk shop. Many of these chatrooms are hosted by remote application service providers that you can find at LivePerson.com, InstantService.com, Live2Support.com and MayWeHelp.com. Costs for these services range from $9 to $99 per month, depending on the features you’d like.

Elegant Automation of Business Transactions

Software companies and application service providers have all sorts of solutions for engaging in e-commerce, getting a quick quote back to a prospect and posting various forms — duties that can speed data from the Web directly to your database for quick manipulation.

For example, Lands’ End (www.landsend.com) enables firms interested in its affiliate marketing program to sign up right from the site. Plus customers looking to track orders don’t have to go far: There’s a link to shipment tracking from the Lands’ End home page.

Enlightened Use of Multimedia

Now that the gee-whiz novelty of applications such as audio, video and 3-D via the Web has run its course, Web pioneers are finding ways to leverage these advanced technologies with finesse.

Audio/video applications such as Real Networks’ Helix Producer ($399; www.realnetworks.com) and Microsoft Windows Media (free for Windows users) are being used by corporate personnel to broadcast quarterly meetings, new product introductions and the like.

And 3-D software like Apple’s Quicktime VR ($338; www.apple.com/quicktime) and hardware/software solutions from IPIX (starting at $595; www.ipix.com) are used to create product- and service-related “walk-throughs,” “fly-throughs” and other virtual-reality experiences that can help sell.

Federated Department Stores (www.fds.com/home.asp) leverages multimedia to offer a slide show of its products and animations of important announcements. Both technologies catch the eye without causing significant download delays.

Quick Downloadability

While too many Web sites feature every technological bell and whistle known to man, savvier designers who strip the bloat out of Web multimedia get quicker downloads and visitors who don’t click away in frustration. Both Adobe’s Photoshop ($468; www.adobe.com) and Ulead’s PhotoImpact ($90; www.ulead.com) have image-optimizer tools that help reduce a graphic’s size to its bare essentials.

Some companies even offer text-only versions of their sites for visitors cruising on low-power modems. For example, Diamond Comics offers a text-only version of its monthly catalog for quick cruising.

One more thing that can help your site load faster: Use a high-powered site host. “Your Web-hosting company should have at least a T1 connection,” says Peter Kent, author of “Internet Marketing and Promotions” (topfloor.com).

Once you’re fully engaged in the creative process of Web design and maintenance, you’ll likely come up with a few more ideas about what works for your site.

Joe Dysart, Thousand Oaks, CA, is a business consultant and speaker involved in Internet-related issues. You can reach him at (805) 379-3673, or by e-mail: joe@joedysart.com.