Can Your Web Site Win The Tour De France?
It's over. After three grueling weeks of racing, Lance Armstrong has won what some call the world's most difficult sporting event, the Tour De France. The US newspapers gave the event a cursory notation the Monday after the finish and showed a single photo of Lance in his yellow jersey (used to identify the Tour leader) sporting an ear-to-ear grin. But those of us who are avid cyclists and follow bicycle racing know there is much more to winning an event like this than simply one man riding to glory after three weeks and over 2,000 miles.
The world sees only Armstrong, but behind this cycling phenomenon is an incredible team. Actually there are two teams. One is the group of cyclists that support, protect and lead Armstrong during the actual racing. The other is the support team no one sees. This consists of all the coaches, trainers, therapists, medical staff, chefs, team managers, mechanics and even the people who drive the support vehicles.
So what does this have to do with your website? As I go through my annual TDF withdrawal, I have begun to equate the US Postal Service cycling team to a well performing Web site. Here is a relationship of the various elements.
1) Message The message Armstrong sent to his competition this year was, "Don't even think of messing with me." It was a very strong statement. What message does your Website portray? Do you tell your site visitors right up front what it is your company does, what problems you solve and how? People will relate to real problems your company solves for clients.
2) Focus Armstrong has a team of elite cyclists whose only job is to support their team leader. Think of all the pages on your Website as the support for your message. These are the pages people will look at and read to learn about your company, your services and your products. Enforce your message, provide clear and understandable information, be consistent. Most importantly, stay focused.
3) Identity The "posties" (as the US Postal team riders are called) all wear the same blue jerseys. Each team has its own colors. Your Web site pages should all look alike. I have seen many sites with a "killer" home page, yet the rest of the site is mundane. Often, subsequent pages seem to degrade and change in design and layout. I begin to wonder if I am still on the original site. The same logo should appear on every page and be consistent with your navigation. People should never have to wonder if they have left your site, regardless of which page they are looking at.
4) Support Just as the US Postal team has a plethora of behind-the-scenes support people, your Web site needs hidden support.
The first line is your hosting company. If your site is down due to a malfunctioning or overloaded server, it is a reflection on you. I have had hosting companies forget to upload their entire password file for shared hosting sites when bringing a new server online. Another ISP never configured Apache on a new server to display HTM pages, only HTML. A third copied files onto a new server and lost all the CGI permissions, so none of the forms or back end programs worked.
Be sure you have clean HTML code. Your site must work in all browsers and across all platforms. A good HTML editor will write clean HTML. Many developers still write in text mode and occasionally forget an opening or ending tag. One bad tag can ruin your whole page.
There is a bevy of discussion these days on the use of CSS (cascading style sheets) and yet I see very little mention of how differently Netscape and Explorer interpret these commands. If you do not want to perform the necessary testing yourself use an online service to do it for you.
Be sure your JavaScript works on in all browsers. Recently, I was asked to critique a specific site only to find the image rollovers did not work properly in Netscape. This is basic stuff. Is your CGI reliable? These behind-the-scenes programming tools that are used to enhance a site can easily destroy it if they do not work properly.
5) Content The US Postal Service cycling team has depth and discipline. On a Web site, this is reflected in the quantity, quality and consistency of your content. Aside from articles and white papers, the content must be short and consistent throughout the site. Stay well focused and direct content to your potential client base.
6) Anticipate Every day before the individual race begins, the US Postal support team drives ahead to the next city. They literally dominate a hotel and prepare for the arrival of the riders. The team chefs take over the kitchen, preparing the types of meals each individual rider prefers. Anticipating the feeding habits of a machine that burns over 5,000 calories a day is no mean feat in itself. The cyclists never look at a menu. Their individually prepared meal is waiting for them when they arrive.
As you lay out your web site, try to anticipate where your visitors will go next. You can then design your navigation system to lead the visitor to the next page, or set of pages. You can pre-load images so the visitor does not have to wait for them to load. You can direct people to a specific page by continuing a block of text onto another page. Imagine yourself as a chef for a racer who hates meat, will tolerate pork and devour chicken. How long would you last if you gave him a rare steak?
About the author: Ken Hablow is an independent Website designer and marketing consultant in Boston MA. He can be reached through his Website at www.khgraphics.com