BUILDING A BETTER WEBSITE: Top mistakes of business Websites - Brief Article

Black Enterprise, March, 1999 by Rebecca Frances Rohan

Avoid these pitfalls for a successful online presence

If you want customers to buy from your store or retain your services, you have to treat them well. Many companies, Internet proprietors included, forget that cardinal rule and neglect the needs of their most valuable online asset--the visitor. Most importantly, make your Website serve customers--not the other way around, because your closest competitor is just a mouse click away.

* Don't put surfers to work. You wouldn't send customers out of your store to get special equipment just to shop your aisles, so "don't ask Web visitors to change browsers or download and install extra software or `plug ins,'" says Craig Settles, owner of Successful.com. a high-tech consulting company (www.successful.com). Also, be sure to convert unusual file formats into something accessible to virtually everyone.

* Don't rely on visitors using the latest software and hardware. Your Website should be accessible to the lowest common denominator in Web browsing. "Most people aren't changing browsers just because there's a newer version," says Settles. That doesn't mean you can't add high-tech touches where appropriate, but they should not be integral to experiencing your site (unless you sell multimedia or similarly audible and visible products and services).

* Avoid writing pages with any coding language later than HTML version 3.2 if possible. Be equally careful when incorporating Java into your site: some browsers are unable to handle it, and many people with Java-compatible browsers disable it and JavaScript for security reasons. Frames, invisible separators that determine the layout of a Web page, are not visible to all browsers. Tables are a similar tool that can do many of the layout jobs frames do, but with cleaner and more widely accepted code.

If your site depends on forms, provide instructions for printing, faxing or mailing an order page, plus a phone number for those timid about ordering over the Net.

* Don't skimp on testing. Thousands of companies go live every day with Websites that testing could have improved. Get a group of individuals who can "beta test" your site from different systems and evaluate your site for speed, navigation and usability. Have them complete the entire shopping experience and get feedback on key questions such as:

* Was it easy to navigate?

* What were the problems?

* Would they buy from this site and, if not, what were their concerns?

* Consider videotaping several of the testers as they explore your site. Discuss what they were looking for and how quickly they found it, if at all. Test from different hardware/software platforms, browsers, modern speeds and monitor resolutions. Everything should look good at 640 by 480 resolution. Users should never have to scroll horizontally. There's plenty of vertical scrolling to keep people occupied. Finally, test for dead hyperlinks--visitors should never get "file not found" messages or "broken image link" icons.

* Don't make your site look amateurish. Avoid unprofessional touches such as signs saying "Welcome to Clue-Free Inc.," "Under Construction," hot link text that says "click here," and sounds that jolt visitors' nerves. Professional sites should avoid making hot links of everything possible--especially when the links lead to other sites. Don't "trade links" with sites unless you get a measurable benefit from doing so. For instance, links to sites that offer complimentary goods or reference materials make sense because they enhance your visitors' appreciation of your site and products. Remember, you want visitors to return to your site, and avoiding these mistakes will make them more likely to do so.

--Rebecca Frances Rohan is the author of "Building Better Web Pages," (AP Professional, $34.97)

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