Your website has one purpose and one purpose alone and that is to sell. Selling is not always about credit card shopping carts or product listings with nice pictures, sometimes it is information. Other times it is like a brochure or resume to help get your name out and what remarkable things you may have done. This is how I got my first job developing websites in 1995, I built a corny site about my family and used frames so I could show how cool I was. The result was wow, this guy knows what he is doing.
Your website needs to be about selling your services even if it is just information or content. There is a reason you spent so much time and money on developing the site in the first place. Websites need to be created and managed to sell. When looking at designs for your website do not get wow’d by pictures or design since those are short term. Do not let the graphics overwhelm the information or your own brand and demographic. Have a management plan in place to keep the content fresh and focused. Provide value to your prospect.
Do not refer to people that come to your website as “users”, they are “prospects”. Prospects are potential customers so the site should be designed and provide for them, not what you think. Use your web logs to track how your prospects move within your site. So you can make updates from the data, and interviewing key customers. Do not make changes on customer complains. Listen, note and evaluate but do not change until a trend becomes clear and then come up with a course of action.
When you are intrerviewing a firm ask them “why should we have a website?” Listen to what they say, then ask why you use them. Don’t go for the shinny object, validate what they are showing, ask yourself “will it help to get a sale?”
