Website Analyst Newsletter
Meeting Your Needs With Excellence
Issue 11
October 2000
Editor: Lucian Millis, editor@website-analyst.co.il
Publisher: Website Analyst http://www.website-analyst.co.il/
Website Analyst offers free website evaluation, ratings,
web strategy resources, consulting and an award.
ATTENTION: You have received this email as a result of
subscribing via email, or the subscription form on our
website. SUBSCRIBE and UNSUBSCRIBE details are at the end of
this email. Our subscriber list is never sold, traded or
otherwise made available to other companies or individuals.
We value every subscriber and respect your privacy.
For the full privacy statement: http://www.website-analyst.co.il/privacy.html
MAILING LIST HOST
Hosted by Topica at:
http://www.topica.com/
Thanks for the good service!
This ezine featured at EzineCenter.com - the Ezine Search
Engine(tm) - http://www.ezinecenter.com/
IN THIS ISSUE
1. Editor's Note
2. Is Your Website Working For You? by Melisa McCurley
3. Make a Web Page!
4. Links of Interest
5. Pick Of The Month (Web Developer's Virtual Library)
6. List Management
7. Contact Information
1. Editor's Note
Dear Reader,
You may forward this copy of WA Newsletter to friends and
colleagues who have an interest in customer experience and
information design for websites. Thanks so much!
2. Is Your Website Working For You? by Melisa McCurley
As a professional website designer, I am always amazed at the
number of business websites out there that make it nearly
impossible to do business with the company via the website.
Here is a list of 5 things that I recommend you check to make
sure your website is working for you and not against you.
1. Does it state where you are willing to sell your products
or services? Worldwide, nationwide, regionally, locally?
If not worldwide, do you clearly state where you are? I have
seen sites that were clearly local services that didn't even
say what state they were in.
2. Does it make it easy for customers to ask questions?
No matter how clear you think you have been, there will
always be someone with a question. You should have a contact
link or email link on every page.
3. Do you have photos of your product or examples or your
work? Not many are willing to buy a product sight unseen.
4. How easy is it to order from you? You should have a
shopping cart button or order form link in a highly visible
spot. Make it clear what payment methods you accept, what
your shipping charges are, and how the product will be
shipped. Link the order form to a confirmation page so the
customer is assured that the order went through.
5. What if the customer is not satisfied with the product?
Have you made your return policies clear? Who is responsible
for shipping if something is returned? Do you allow refunds,
or just exchanges? What if the item was damaged during
shipping? You need to make the customer feel secure in placing
an order with you.
If your website doesn't look professional, doesn't answer
their questions, and doesn't make it easy for people to buy
from you, they will surf on to the next site that does. So
take some time to make sure your website is working for you
and not against you.
About the Author
Melisa McCurley, Owner of Virtually Designed.
Affordable website design for small and home businesses.
http://virtuallydesigned.com
Editor of Biz Bytes - free ezine designed to help you start,
run, and prosper at your small business. Maillto: bizbytes-subscribe@egroups.com
3. Make a Web Page!
You can build a Web page one of two ways: you can either
write all of the HTML code yourself (using any text editor),
or you can use a special HTML editor that allows you to design
a page without knowing HTML. This type of editor is often
called a "WYSIWYG" editor meaning "what you see is what you
get."
Take charge of your code with an award-winning text editor!
NoteTab Pro is a full featured text editor that lets you open
and edit simultaneously as many documents as your system can
support. You can edit documents of unlimited size! Handy
sample macro libraries are supplied, and you can easily build
your own.
NoteTab Pro is highly customizable, from color-coded syntax
highlighting to fully configurable shortcut menus. Spell
checker, thesaurus and other goodies. Ease of use, powerful
functionality.
NoteTab Light v4.82 (freeware), NoteTab Pro and NoteTab Std.
All versions of NoteTab are Year 2000 compliant (Y2K).
Platforms: Windows 95/98/NT/2000.
http://www.notetab.com/
TIP: High-tech gimmicks (i.e., plug-ins and lots of Java special
effects) do not necessarily make a great site!
HTML for Beginners, or How To Make Your First Web Page
http://webdeveloper.com/html/beginners_html.html
4. Links of Interest
Plotting Your Course to Successful Navigation
"The fundamental idea behind a site is usability. A successful
navigation system can be both the cause and effect of a
well-structured Web architecture. By categorizing information
and ideas, not only will the team behind the Web site find it
easier to add content and make changes, but users will be able
to manipulate the pages they meander through in any way they
choose."
http://www.webreview.com/2000/09_15/webauthors/09_15_00_3.shtml
The Excellent Intranet Cost Analyzer
"Not finding information can be expensive."
http://www.dack.com/web/cost_analyzer.html
TIP: If your site requires visitors to give any personal
information, such as email addresses or credit card details
etc, you must provide an easily accessible Privacy Policy
stating exactly what such collected data is used for.
Mapping Web Sites - Planning Diagrams to Site Maps
"Even with the best design, a web site is largely invisible
and often difficult to grasp. As the web has grown as a
publishing media, designers have struggled to find the
equivalent of an index or table of contents for a web site."
http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/seminars/mapping/maptoc.htm
Link Popularity and Search Engines
"In addition to keyword relevancy, title and meta tag
optimization, and directory listings, link popularity has
become another significant factor in obtaining high search
engine rankings (which consequently is likely to generate
more traffic at your site)."
http://www.emarketer.com/enews/20000720_links.html
How To Install A Perl Script for Use as A CGI Program
http://www.freeperlcode.com/newuser/installascript.html
TIP: Make your page easy to scan. Use headers to break up
your text into digestible chunks. This way if a visitor scans
your page, he can grasp a quick sense of what your site is about.
5. Pick Of The Month
Web Developer's Virtual Library
The WDVL is one of the oldest web developer web sites.
The main sections are Authoring (HTML, CGI, Java, JScript,
Graphics), Internet (E-Commerce, UNIX, Security and Privacy,
Protocols), Location (Meta tagging, Promotion), Multimedia,
and Software Tools.
Very informative, high style of information, easy to read.
Visit and bookmark this site; you'll want to be able to find
it again.
http://www.stars.com/
Website Analyst
PO Box 183
Netanya, 42101 - Israel
(c) 1999-2000 Website Analyst. All rights reserved.
All guest articles are copyright their respective owners and
are reproduced with permission. This publication is for
informational purposes only, and may be freely redistributed
if copied in its entirety.
Thanks for reading another issue of WA Newsletter!