What makes a good web site?

On one hand a simple question and on the other not so simple. Lets look at the not-so-simple answer first. Ask 10 people and you will get 11 different answers. At the studios, we consider three major areas:

• Design – web is a visual media. It needs to look good, easy to navigate and holds the viewers interest. You need to balance eye-candy, flash and rich media with the site being too plain with no ability to grab attention. Remember your site often produces “first impressions.”
• Functionality – That is does it do what it is suppose to do functionally. No broken links (pressing on a button that goes to a page that does not exist), no error messages, loads in a reasonable time-frame, works on multiple browsers, calculations, branches, etc. all work.
• Marketed – Having a nice looking, working site and no one visits it or does not support your marketing program is like an un-charted island that no one knows about.

The simple answer is:

• Does it do what it is suppose to?
• Does it help expand and protect your brand?
• Present a good first impression?
• Support your marketing program? and
• Helps bring in more revenue (or at least some call to action).

If it does these five things, by definition, it is a good web site.

Another question often asked is template vs custom. Bottom line is cost. However, a large percentage of our web work is for clients moving away from an existing template:

• Difficult to change
• Found out they do not own their site
• Starting to look like everyone else using the same template.

“If you are different and unique – that is why you rather then your completion – then why are you spending so much effort to look like everyone else?”

At t • C • D • G • Studios, we provide a detailed web site audit that covers the three major areas of design, functionality, and marketed. Below is a short list of the audit areas:
Part I: Design elements
First Impression:
• Colors
• Logo/Branding
• Header Images
• Typography
• Unprofessional items
• Spelling and Grammar
• Overall professional appearance

Purpose:
• Well-defined purpose
• Clarity

Design:
• Smooth transitions
• Use of active white space
• Page consistency
• Other:

Part II: Usability/Functionality
• Load time
• Error messages
• Amount of advertisements
• Navigation
• Accessibility
• Hyperlinks
• Page organization
• Use of CSS
• Use of pop-ups and pop-unders
• Other

Part III: Marketing
• Relevancy words phrases for page/file names, alt tags, header tags, meta areas
• Do-nots

New Media, Web 2.0 and Social Marketing
• Associations
• Opt-in registration
• Collaboration
• Ezine and email links
• Articles and other content
• Social Media servers

Your web site is one of the most important assets of your business. It needs to be right. Since it serves a broad range of purposes, there are many aspects that must be considered. You need a web site – but do it right. A bad site can actually hurt your business a good site will help your business.