Quality content on your website can provide users with the information they are looking for. Content also allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your field. When your website visitors are looking to make a purchase they will feel more comfortable with your products and services if you have built their trust and confidence through what you have written on your website.
Keyword-filled content is also crucial for getting high search engine rankings. Most internet users trust search engines to help them find what they are looking for. Taking the time to create high quality content can have huge payoffs through increased search engine rankings.
Simple and Attractive Design
The design of a good website should be simple, yet professional. The design should not take away or distract from the content. Websites with excessive use of Flash and moving images can be very distracting. Use design to help you get your message to visitors, not to distract them from the message. Colors should not be hard on the eyes, and text should be easy to read.
Easy Navigation
Navigation and links provide opportunities to incorporate design elements in to the website; however, navigation schemes should not be so elaborate that the user has trouble knowing where to click to move to another page. The average visitor's attention span is a matter of seconds, and if it is hard to find what he or she is looking for, you will loose that visitor very quickly. Links to your most important pages should be easily found on every page. A good rule of thumb is that every page should be accessible in two clicks from your home page (this may not be possible with larger sites).
Unique
The most successful websites will stand out from the crowd. There are a number of was that you can make your website stand out: better design, high quality articles, a blog, a newsletter, some type of resource or tool. Find something that would be appealing to your target market.
Fresh
Having a website that changes or is updated frequently will encourage repeat visitors. Repeat visitors will be more loyal and more likely to buy. There are a few different options for keeping your site fresh:
1- Update the site and add content occasionally - This will require you to either pay a designer or do the work yourself.
2 - Use a blog - With a blog you can add content to your website from any computer with an internet connection. All you'll have to do is login and type. No special software or skills are required.
3 - RSS feeds - With RSS feeds you can add news headlines, weather, stock tickers, etc. to your website. Additionally, you can add content from most blogs to your site with RSS. The benefit of RSS feeds is that once in place they will automatically update.
Optimized
A successful website will be search engine-friendly. Optimization includes things like using page titles and meta tags for all of your pages. Using headers and alt tags for images can also help optimization and accessibility. Even a website that is strong in other areas but weak in optimization may be hard for users to find.
Different approaches to web development available.
Developing Information Content for the World Wide Web
With the expanding technical options for communication on the Web, developers might be tempted to focus only on issues such as hypertext mark up language (HTML) syntax, page layout, or the latest and flashiest technologies. However, Web developers need a broader, more process-oriented approach in order to articulate the information content they wish to convey. Developers also need to pay close attention to the characteristics and qualities of the Web as a medium for communication so that they don't merely duplicate practices intended for paper or other media.
Developing Web content involves shaping and negotiating meaning and making many choices involving technical, aesthetic, and usability concerns. And, as technical communicators know, developing information requires keen skills in planning, analysis, and design in addition to Web-oriented skills in representing information in a particular medium.
In order to develop a broader perspective of Web, developers can draw on many existing concepts from technical communication and software engineering practices. This article briefly describes the methodology for Web information developments that is process-oriented and which takes into account the unique characteristics and qualities of the World Wide Web.
Web Development methodology involves six sets of information, which call elements:
Audience information is a store of knowledge about the target audience for the web as well as the actual audience who uses the web.
The purpose statement defines the reason for and scope of the web's existence.
The objectives list defines the specific goals the web should accomplish.
The domain information is a collection of knowledge and information about the subject domain the web covers.
The web specification is a detailed description of the constraints and elements that will go into the web.
The web presentation is the full description of the technical structures (hypertext and other media) by which the web is delivered to the users.
The communicator develops these elements while engaging in these six processes:
Planning is the process of defining and gathering information about the web's audience, purpose, objectives, and policies for information development and use.
Analysis involves evaluating information consistency and correctness as well as checking the technical makeup of the web.
Design is the process of creating a map of the relationships among pages of the web and the look and feel of individual pages.
Implementation: is the process of creating files of HTML (and associated software, such as Java applets).
Promotion: involves providing publicity releases for general Web audiences, potential users, and current users.
Innovation is the process of continuously and creatively working for improvement in the web to meet user needs.
You'll notice that this methodology contains many of the same elements as a traditional information development process as well as shares a resemblance to software engineering practices. However, since Web works often are very dynamic and competitive, a web information developer should work on all these processes continuously. There's no "final state" analogous to a ship date for a paper document, software, or CD-ROM--every day is a new deadline, and each day brings a new information environment.
Planning for the Audience and Purpose
In the first stages of the lifecycle of a web, the focus will be on the processes of planning and analysis. In particular, you'll need to define the purpose of your web and develop audience information. Audience analysis is key in many technical communication tasks 6. This planning and analysis requires that you ask and answer questions such as: Who will use this web? What will they gain from it?
A useful method to generate audience information is to make a list of information about the audience's background, characteristics, and concerns. This information may not ever be complete, but developers can create and maintain a store of information that can grow over time.
At first, don't try to reach too broad an audience (e.g., "everyone using the Web"), but focus on a subset related to your purpose. For example, if you are preparing a web for a company selling modems, you might define your audience as "potential, current, and past purchasers of the modems." You may have several audiences for the web. For example, in addition to modem buyers, you could be also communicating to company stockholders, employees, or suppliers. One useful technique is to create a diagram showing the audiences you will reach in your web.
Another focus in the early phase of web development is to define your purpose. It's a good idea to have a written purpose statement available at all times during web development. At first, you might state the purpose in general terms, such as "to create a presence for our company in cyberspace." However, it is best to make your purpose statement more specific even at first, such as "to provide information about our company's products."
The purpose statement and audience information together go a long way toward articulating what the web is about and are the key pieces of information to develop early in the web's lifecycle.
Setting Objectives and Gathering Domain Information
Given an audience and a purpose, you can next focus on forming a list of specific objectives, or goals, for the web to accomplish. For example, a web's purpose statement might be "to provide information about our company's line of modems" and this web's audience definition might be "prospective customers."
The objective list for this web might be:
List the pictures, prices, schematics of all of our modems.
Provide ordering and service information.
Provide background (domain) information about modems to interest prospective customers and help them user our products.
Once you have created a set of objectives, the next step is to gather domain information that supports these objectives. The domain information is a collection of knowledge and information about the subject domain the web covers. This includes information that the users of the web will encounter and information the web developers need to design or implement the web.
For example, a web offering modems for sale might draw on a variety of information about the use, mechanics, principles, and specifications for modems. While not all this information would necessarily be made available to the users of the web, this domain knowledge may be helpful for the web developers so that they can understand the vocabulary and concepts associated with the products.
Often, this domain information makes a good complement to the information the web offers. For example, a modem manufacturer with a good collection of modem facts might find that interested buyers visit that web for technical information about modems and, in the course of this visit, be informed of a company's products.
Designing a Web
In designing a web you should take into account the web's purpose and audience. A good designer knows how to achieve the effects called for in the most flexible, efficient, and elegant way. To design a web, you should have a thorough grounding in hypertext, multimedia, Java, and other programming possibilities as well as knowledge about how particular web structures affect an audience.
Because of the porous quality of a web, you need to consider how a variety of audiences might find different "ways into" your information. Hypertext can provide alternate views of information and alternative routes for users to follow based on their needs and interests. A good way to provide this flexibility is to separate information into manageable page-sized chunks and then provide cues for the reader about the web's information structure and contents, context, and navigation. A Web designer thus creates an overall link architecture for a web--specifying page contents and the hyperlinks among these pages to connect information along the routes of user needs.
A web designer should also create a coherent and consistent "look and feel" for the entire web. One way to do this is to use principles of page layout and design and provide the user with a variety of visual cues. These cues, consistently placed on pages of the web, help users navigate and use the web's information. Because a web is characteristically bound in its use context, these cues should help reveal that context, so that the user can find related information and find how the web relates to other areas of knowledge.
Implementing a Web
After you've completed a web design, the next step is to implement the web within the limitations on its technical makeup you may have defined in its specifications. The initial implementation might be a prototype which is not released publicly, but available for analysis as used by a set of representative users.
A web implementer creates hypertext mark up language (HTML), Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs, and/or Java scripts and/or applets. The implementation process resembles software development because it involves using a specific syntax for creating hypertext structures in HTML or writing programming language code statements in computer files.
Here are key implementation practices:
At the outset, create a stable, extendible directory and file structure to manage the web's files and/or software components (including CGI or Java programs).
Use HTML tools such as editors and authoring environments where helpful. Note that some of these editors are "translators" from authoring programs meant for paper based publications and are not always customized for hypertext development.
Check the web's implementation in various browsers to ensure that the HTML can be interpreted properly. Use templates for supporting the consistent look and feel defined in the Web's design.
Analyzing a Web
During analysis, you examine a web's elements to see if it is accomplishing its objectives, to see if it is implemented correctly, and its domain information is correct and up-to-date. The goal of this evaluation is to identify problem areas.
Key analysis practices are:
Observing representative audience members using your web (usability analysis).
Evaluating the consistency and verify the correctness of the domain information.
Checking the technical implementation of the web with HTML validation tools.
The Web's Release and Promotion
The decision to publicly announce the release of your web should not be made lightly. During the time immediately following its public availability, your web will receive a great deal of attention from not only the audience members it attempts to reach, but people involved in web resource indexing as well as automated indexing software.
Once your web is ready, you can make its existence known to online communities through publicity. You can also form relationships with other webs which reach a similar audience or have been prepared for a similar purpose. Another way to further promote a web is to use specific marketing strategies or business models customized for the environment of the Web.
In doing this promotion, it is important that you follow online community norms. You should avoid "spamming" (indiscriminately sending messages to large numbers of mostly uninterested people) any communication forum with news of your web's release. Instead, you should aim publicity to appropriate online (and offline) mailing lists and promotion services.
Ongoing Innovation
Despite the linear description of the processes of Web development I've described here, the work of a Web is never done. Because a web is a round-the-clock, interactive service, developers should expect feedback from users and anticipate their changing needs.
Key innovation practices are:
Continuously and creatively work for improvement to meet user needs.
Based on analysis, user testing, and focus groups, identify new user needs.
Identify new technologies that may help you meet user needs better.
Ultimately the goal of innovation is to continuously improve the quality of a web by making sure that the processes of planning, analysis, design, implementation, promotion, and innovation are ongoing. Developers can share information about the web's elements and ensure that the information in the web meets user needs in terms of both content and interface.
Integration
While the methodology outlined here for developing a web won't work flawlessly in all situations, it can serve as a basis for approaching many of the issues of web information development.
To a casual Web user, this formal methodology might seem an encumbering amount of complication on what may seem to be only the task of "writing HTML" or creating a "home page." However, identifying processes and elements and focusing on them need not stifle creativity--in fact, a process approach is a emphasis of many quality improvement programs 7. And, as many Web users might attest, a well-developed web usually has a far greater value than one that is hastily put together. In particular, a web intended for business or professional communication needs to not only reflect a consensus of meaning among the sponsors and originators of the information, but it must reach a diverse audience and continuously change as user needs change.
The Future of Web Development
From about 2004 we entered a new phase in the evolution of web application development. After a number of, relatively uneventful years, with Microsoft's Internet Explorer being the dominant player, we began to see a lot of frenetic activity, and innovation in the web application space.
Rich Internet Applications - A Superior Technology
The fundamental limitations HTML , has lead to the rise of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies such as Adobe's Flash based Flex technology, Microsoft's Silverlight and JavaFX. RIA is the ultimate expression of developers' and users' frustration with HTML and browsers incompatibility, essentially rejecting HTML and the W3C backed technologies as being able to deliver a compelling and consistent user experience.
RIA technologies will gain ground in the coming years because:
they offer a superior architecture for application development,
they offer better security,
they guarantee a consistent presentation of the user interface across operating systems and browsers, and
the cut down development time and save money,
they have superior tool support
The point of me is that the open source community needs to be more active in the RIA space. I think the public web will remain wedded to HTML and open standards but businesses will start to adopt RIA development in increasing large numbers once the technology matures.
Summary
Developing information for the Web requires a focus on meeting user needs. To accomplish this, web development methodology involves six elements and these six continuously ongoing processes:
Planning: define target audience, purpose, objectives, and policies for information development and use.
Analysis: check technical construction of web with validation tools; evaluate information consistency and verify correctness of domain information.
Design: separate information into page-sized chunks; connect pages along routes of use and user thinking; provide information, context, and navigation cues; create a consistent look and feel.
Implementation: create an extendible directory and file structure; use HTML tools where helpful; use templates for supporting consistent look and feel; check implementation in various browsers.
Promotion: target publicity releases for general Web audiences, potential users, and current users; follow online community norms and practices; innovatively connect with users to meet their needs.
Innovation: continuously and creatively work for improvement to meet user needs; use testing, evaluation, and focus groups to shift and change web's content as user needs change.
Although the methodology outlined here for developing a web won't work flawlessly in all situations, it can serve as a basis for looking at many issues of web development. The actual processes and elements used in web development for any particular project might be a variation on these. Being aware of what elements and processes can be involved in web development is key; developers, once aware of what they might face, can most flexibly grow successful webs.
Sources
http://www.december.com/web/develop/processes.html
http://www.opentechexchange.org/blogs/mark/ria-versus-web20
http://www.december.com/web/develop.html
http://flashpuzzlegames.bloghitz.com/2011/04/09/characteristics-in-between-software-design-and-web-development/
http://www.december.com/web/develop/overview.html
