10 reasons to work with professionals
opportunity & feasibility analysis
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| Sometimes, analyses clearly indicate that it is better to not go ahead with a project. |
Opportunity analysis
an opportunity anlysis verifies whether there really is an opportunity for what you have to offer. It analyses offer, demand, and necessary prerequisites. An example: A customer wanted to develop a site that offered a specific service, and charge a low price for it. He had calculated that he could offer the service online cheaper than if he would deliver it in person. One quick analysis, however, pointed out that there were at least a dozen sites on the Internet already that offered the same service for free. Unless he differentiated his product, there would be no market for it, as others offered similar (or better) products for free.
Feasibility analysis
One customer had planned a web site in several languages, and with different user profiles to give access to different parts of the web site. A feasibility analysis showed that the cost would almost quadruple if this site would be in all the languages envisaged. The cost would quadruple again if the system of user profiles and authentication that the customer had in mind would be installed, whereas another solution
offered the same functionality at one quarter of the price.
The feasibility analysis showed that by chosing different technologies,
95% of the desired goals could be achieved at 6.75% of the cost. 
return on investment
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| Initially investing a bit more, can save a lot later on. |
Sometimes investing slightly more can save you a lot of money. One customer planned weekly news updates in the form of media releases etc. They could either send all the texts to us to put them on the Internet for them. Or they could use a custom made application. This application allowed them to first create the texts in Microsoft Word, using a custom made template. Subsequently they could upload the texts to the web site by filling out a form that also kept track of "meta information." This "meta information" would allow users to perform advanced queries by topic, author, date, etc.
Having this application made, did cost a little extra, but the opportunity and feasibility analysis had shown that it would pay for itself in only three months by saving on expenses of having a third party publish the information.
accessibility
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| How accessible is your site? |
Apart from being "politically correct," taking into account the accessibility of your web site for disabled users, can be a commercial advantage.
People who are visually impaired often use devices to read the texts of web pages to them. Web pages that then rely, e.g., on a solely graphical navigation, become totally inaccessible.
Making web pages "accessible" involves a lot of "dos" and "don'ts" that not everyone is familiar with.
cross-browser compatibility
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| There is more than one browser... |
Unfortunately, a lot of web site developers create web sites that are only tested in the one web browser that they happen to be using. They don't take into account that different versions of the same browser can behave differently, or that other people use different browsers.
On the Net, there are several examples of web sites that just appear as blank pages when accessed, e.g., with a Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, or Safari browser.
If your web site has not been tested for cross-browser compatibility, you may lose out on customers who use different browsers.
speed
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| World Wide Wait? |
Not everybody uses high speed internet access (broadband). One customer had a layout made for his web site by a talented graphic designer. The pages looked very appealing. But when the site went live, some customers, using dial-up lines, had to wait up to five minutes to get to see the first page. Independent tests have repeatedly shown that most users are willing to wait only between 30 to 60 seconds for a page to load...
Increasing the speed of your web site, involves optimising graphics, organising your texts properly and if need be, splitting up information differently. Knowing what bandwidth your ISP is using, is important, too.
ease of navigation
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| Menus are useful in bigger web sites. |
What good is a web site that contains any information a user could possibly want, if he can't find that information? There are many web sites where users get "lost in hyperspace," or where the information is "a click too far."
A thoroughly prepared tree structure, site maps, search engines, sufficient internal links, all contribute to the ease of navigation of a web site.
The bigger your web site, the bigger the challenge to maintain ease of navigation. A well designed tree structure, combined with a menu that is available on each page can do miracles.
readability of texts
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| Do your texts get your message across? |
Writing texts is an art in itself. Sentences shouldn't be too long. (As a rule of thumb, they shouldn't contain more than 20 words). On a screen the texts shouldn't be too wide, either. (More than 65 characters on one row, force your eyes to go back and forth. This slows down the reading process and causes a subconscious resistance). And then, there is of course the issue of proper usage of language... I had a customer who had written some texts himself. Just running the texts through a spell checker revealed an average of four errors per paragraph...
The texts you present on your web site, give the visitor an indication of the quality you offer.
Working with a copy writer, therefore, often is a good idea.
target audiences
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| Identifying target audiences and user profiles increases your effectiveness. |
An essential part of communicating is knowing who you are communicating with. Who all will be consulting your web site? And what information are you planning to give them?
One of the first things to do, before launching a web site, is to identify your target audiences and assembling the information packages and services you want to provide them with. Then you decide how to present that information.
For bigger web sites that target different audiences, you need to define the different user profiles you will be serving, and then choose the way to best accomplish this. Different user profiles will have different needs and different preferences that you have to cater for.
planning for expansion
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| Web sites need to change, to grow... |
People tend to get bored easily. They need incentives both to come, and to return, to your site. In order to keep attracting visitors, web sites have to grow, to change, to offer additional features or information.
Sometimes your budget restricts your options. But if you have an annually recurrent budget, you can plan and implement your projects for years to come.
There are a myriad of reasons to plan ahead, with the future of your web site in mind. These are just two of them. Think "expansion."
ranking in search engines
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| Search engines use different criteria. |
Crafting your pages so they do well in search engines, is an art in itself, too. You need a carefully selected set of key words, as well as a to the point description of your pages. Key words should ideally be repeated in the title, and in the headings. The description, too, should be repeated as text in the text, etc.
These are just some of the rules to take into account when submitting your web site to the search engines. There are more, because each search engine uses its own ranking criteria. It's important to keep these rules in mind. After all, you don't want to end up being link 1024 of 2048 in the search results...