1. CLEARLY DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE UP FRONT
As with many things in life it helps to start out with a clear understanding of what your purpose is. Take some time to make sure you know what you want your Web site to accomplish. Clearly defining a purpose up front will help you maximize your success on the Web and will keep you focused as you make the numerous decisions that go into developing a site.

2. ORGANIZE YOUR SITE AND ITS COMPONENTS.
Before you get too far along, draw a chart or sketch an outline of how you'll be organizing your site. Even a simple one-page Web site can benefit from a bit of thought about its layout and appearance. As you get involved with more intricate multi-page sites, it's smart to plan out how the different pages will link to one another. The critical questions here are whether your viewers will be able to easily navigate from page to page and will they know where they are at all times?

3. MAKE SURE YOU "LOOK GOOD."
When desktop publishing first came on the scene, there was a rash of poorly designed printed materials -- because individuals without design training had tools in their hands that let them produce design documents. This same problem is one that you need to guard against in establishing your presence on the Web. Impressions count -- and people WILL judge you based on the design of your site.

If you will be designing your own Web site, make sure to ask for feedback on it from friends, family and colleagues -- and be willing to make changes based on what you hear. If you'll be using the services of a consultant to design your site, take a look at other sites he/she has designed to make sure that you're comfortable with their "look and feel."

4. MINIMIZE DOWNLOAD TIMES.
You can have the most beautiful site in the world and get no results if it takes too long for it to download. Web users are notoriously impatient and will simply click to go on to the next thing if they're burning up seconds waiting to see your beautiful page.

If you're just starting with a site, have as a goal minimizing your download times. If you're already up and running, get out your stopwatch and measure how long it takes for your home page to become usable. A good way to speed things up is to minimize the use and/or size of graphics at your site.

In any event, test it with a friend or colleague and observe their reactions. If they get up to get a cup of coffee while your site it downloading, you'll know you have a challenge on your hands!

5. CHOOSE LANGUAGE FOR MAXIMUM COMPREHENSION
The bottom line here is to communicate your message so that your audience understands what you're saying. Once you've written your Web materials, run them past a few members of your potential Web audience and ask them

1. if they understand what's been written and
   
2. if they think they'd be tempted to do business with you based on this content.

7. MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO CONTACT YOU
Display your phone number and e-mail address prominently on your Web site. Include a hyperlink with your e-mail address so a visitor can send you an e-mail while at your site.

8. MAXIMIZE INTERACTIVITY
The Web appears to be evolving in a way that increasingly values interactivity. The more you can add this to your site, the more engaged your viewers will be.

The most basic interactivity is clicking from page to page. Beyond that, you can let people click on a button to send you e-mail. You can set up autoresponders that will automatically send out messages by e-mail when your viewers click on them (use this for special reports, newsletters, etc.).

You can also set up your site so that viewers can automatically subscribe to e-mail lists that you create (this is helpful if you want to make an e-mail newsletter available to clients or if you have a list for "special announcements"). It's now even possible to add audio and video capacity to Web sites and to have interactive "telephone" conversations via the Web.

Undoubtedly there will be much more innovation on the Web as the weeks, months and years pass. The challenge is to include the right amount of interactivity so that your site will be attractive without overwhelming you with too much work.

9. GIVE VISITORS BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
One of the best uses of a Web site -- and this may become more valuable as more people gain access to the Web -- is as a way for you to inform and instruct people about your business. By providing useful information on your Web site, you can save yourself time and let your potential customers/clients learn about your products and services at their convenience.

10. PUBLICIZE YOUR SITE
You have to actively work at making your site known to people.

The most basic way to begin is to register your site (choose your descriptive words carefully) with the various search engines (such as Yahoo!, Altavista, Hotbot, etc.) and to include your Web address on your business card, letterhead, brochures and the other materials you produce.

You can include your Web address on all your outgoing e-mail messages.

You can also insert Meta-Tags in your Web site which will be read by services that scan the web and pull in information for indexing. Your choice of words here will affect how your page gets pulled up when someone does a search. For example, if you were a lawyer specializing in estate planning in Bethesda, Maryland, you might want to include the words "Bethesda, Maryland, Montgomery County, estate planning, attorney, lawyer, wills, trusts, and legal services." The challenge is to identify and include words that people seeking your services will use when they do a search in a search engine.

You can use the "Recommend-It" service on your site. This service lets a visitor to your site easily recommend it to a friend or colleague by simply clicking on a button and sending the friend an e-mail message about your site. (This feature is used at the TopResults Web site -- give it a try to see how it works!).

Have other sites link to yours.

Participate in discussions on the Internet (either via mailing lists or user groups). If you include your Web address on your messages, people who read your messages will be able to check out your page.

To increase the number of repeat visitors (and recommendations to friends, colleagues, etc.) give people a reason to visit and a reason to return. One way to do this is to make your site an information resource on a particular topic that relates to your business. For example, if you were a lawyer handling divorces, you might want to include an overview of divorce law in your state (with appropriate disclaimers, of course!). Also, if you write your own newsletter for customers/clients, this is an excellent place to put your issues as they come out.

The Web is a revolutionary medium that is fundamentally changing the way business is done throughout the world. It's smart to stay abreast of Web developments so you can optimize the benefits available to you from this new mode of communication.

© Copyright 1998 Bill Roche. All rights reserved. Distribution Rights: The above material is copyright, but you may retransmit or distribute it to whomever you wish as long as you do not charge a fee and not a single word is changed, added or deleted, including the contact information. However, you may not copy it to a web site.