Set your sites on expansion

Home Office Computing, March, 1998 by Karen L. Miller

A parent's work is never done. Now that you've brought your Web site into the world, it's time to help it grow by adding some extras to pump up your business message. We scouted out eight enhancements that can help generate leads, ease customers' ability to access your information, and drive visitors to purchase your product or service. Then we asked Web site owners who use these extras to share the insights they've gained from customer feedback.

Before you gone on glitz overload, though, bear in mind that frivolously adding frills can detract from your selling or promotional efforts. If customers have to spend several minutes downloading your multimedia presentation, for example, they might not stick around. Whats more, not all technologies are compatible with all visitors' browsers or appropriate for your business. So don't be afraid to ditch something if its not providing the results you need.

Automate e-mail response. The mail to feature may be your site's most basic interactive link, but its also the most important. HTML editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage 98 (800-426-9400, www.microsoft.com; $149), allow you to quickly insert a mail to hyperlink (a fine of HTML code such as youraddress@yourisp.com"> send us an e-mail!) so customers can send you an e-mail message with just one click. Besides providing away to request product or service information, mailto also lets visitors notify you of any problems with your site.

Multimedia artist Brian Ziffer uses mailto on the Web site for his company, Inertia Designs (www.geocities.com/Eureka/ 7509/inertia_sitemap.html). "A good mailto for efficient communication is essential to a small business," Ziffer says.

Roll out the red carpet. An online guest book improves the communication flow from your customers by allowing them to submit comments directly from a Web page, without starting their e-mail software. Utilizing common gateway interface (CGI) scripts (which are readily available as a free template from most ISPs), guest books are either closed so only you see the comments or open so visitor remarks are loaded directly onto your site.

Natural Bath Shop (www.naturalbath.com) president and co-owner Karen Flowe invites visitor comments about the usefulness of her site and its environmentally friendly bath products. Responding to guest book feedback, naturalbath.com now has a faster loading logo, new product ingredient lists, and happier customers.

Expand your comment forms. Standard fill-in-the-blank forms can leave customers wondering what to say. By embellishing forms with clickable radio buttons, checkboxes, and dropdown menus, you give your Web site visitors more specific options to communicate effectively. Potential customers fill out the form and hit the submit button to send their comments automatically to your e-mail address.

Count your chickens. Whether you use a standard template from your HTML editor or a custom CGI script, a visitor counter posts how many visitors your site has received. This device draws people deeper into your site and helps analyze how your marketing efforts affect traffic. "When people see a counter, they learn they're part of a larger group," notes Robert Maudsley of Web site development firm AEON Enterprises. "And the larger the group, the better they feel about being there." In fact, a counter is the first thing you see at Hollywood memorabilia auctioneer Heather Holmberg's Collectibles (www.collectible.com), an AEON-designed site.

Animate your page. Put motion on your Web pages with the animated graphic interchange format (GIR Programs such as Ulead Systems's GIF Animator 2 (310-523-9393, 800-858-5323, www.ulead.com; $39-95) easily and economically create animated GIFs, which run in Netscape or Microsoft browsers without plug-ins. Keep file sizes between 10K and 20K so visitors won't leave your site in frustration. And be sure to create animations that reinforce and differentiate your site's content and brand from competitors.

Because many people find payroll dull, Accurate Payroll & Accounting (www.Ibigred.com/theoak/) encourages potential clients to "go have some fun while we do your payroll!" Over an "interesting places" menu of hotlinks to diversions, the site features a jack-in-the-box animated GIF.

Scroll a message. Although many people use Netscape's JavaScript or Microsoft's Margee command to create scrolling text for their sites, this Web enhancement has a problem. Unless well-designed, it can flicker or obscure the URLs of hotlinks.

Webhelper's (www.webhelper.com) David Defries, who cleverly used a ticker as a marketing device to gather information about potential clients, now feels that animations and flashing signs are out of fashion on the Net. "When we redesign our site," Defries notes, "we probably won't use this message again."

If you've got your heart set on scrolling text, keep words to a minimum. Make your message purposeful and limit it to one page.

Broadcast sound. If you want your pages to talk or sing, you'll also have to make them stream. RealAudio has become the standard streaming format to play (or stop) sound files immediately after the visitor clicks a button, instead of having to wait for the entire file to download (RealNetworks, www.real.com). This consideration of your potential customers' time will reward you.