Key steps in creating a website

Web pages are the reason for many companies are present on the Web. However, the proliferation of Web pages that have led many organizations to develop the B2N or Business-to-Nobody.

How can a company be present on the Internet effectively and that its actions reach as much target audienceas possible?

Sincesome time agountiltoday, the Internet has taken on a special importance and, both in the media and in different kinds of events (fairs, conferences, seminars, conferences, etc.), theentrepreneurs listen, with a mixture of surprise and excitement, how various groups encourage them to begin to exploit the electronic media, and ultimately, the opportunities the Internet provides.

In this regard it is noteworthy that, although its use has been a key impulse in generating the use of the Internet, the Internet is not composed solely of the WWW (World Wide Web).

Other services, like e-mail, discussion lists, news services, remote access, file transfer, interactive conversations in text mode or voice and video on the Internet, can also be used by companies to optimize their business processes.

"The network has its own features, so a high knowledge of the Internet to exploit its specialis required"

However, since a big number of companies choose to be present, thereis an increase of organizations carrying out a type of e-commerce that is not yet spoken: the B2N (Business-to-Nobody) or said otherwise, the presence of thecompany on the Internet without their actions get toreach anyone.

The company must be aware that the development, launch and maintenance of the Web page requires a commitment from the organization and the choice of a group of appropriateprofessionals set for the tasks involved.

Until not long ago, the development of a Web page seemed linked to the computerguys, whichthrough a simple language and, where appropriate, a complexprogram, elaborate a website with some explanatory text.

However, derived both from the technological advances and the greater knowledge of the environment by the users and the large number of websites competing to attract the interest of these, other aspects also become important nowadays.

For this reason, the team who is in charge of the Web project must be composed of specialists from different disciplines:

• Marketing
• E-Commerce
• Art directors
• Staff in programming
• Graphic design
• Multimedia

However, on the Internet is not enough to moveto the virtual world the ways to make of the physical environment.

The network has its own features, different from other media and marketing and, therefore, members of the multidisciplinary teamaforementioned must have a high knowl edge about the Internet to maximize their particularities.

However, the needs of a large number of companies do not justify the maintenance, as part of the organization, of this team dedicated to the tasks deriving from the website.

For them, the suitable alternative would behiring the services of a technology-oriented Internet consulting and marketing consulting and online advertising, with enough capacity to adapt to the needs of the company and present the most appropriate solution.

Never theless, even in this case, the company will work closely with specialists to make the Web page, which in the future will expand their horizons, perfectly fits the chasedobjectives.

For this reason it is appropriate that someone from the company knows the main aspects of the various steps that must be overcome in the development, launch, maintenance and promotion of the website.

Objective setting

Companies that plan to have presence on the Internet must establish, first of all, the objectives they hope to achieve with it and what is its capacity to assume the commitments that the Web adventure will involve.

For this reason, any project planned on the Internet must respond to a certain specific objectives in advance depending on the budget and the needs and characteristics of the company.

Objectives to be pursued by companies with their online presence.

• Reduce the costs of promotion and communication
• Advertisingpurposes
• Attract new customers
• Provide support for the sales cannel
• Gain experience in e-commerce
• Customer care
• Provide updated information
• Getimage
• Strategicpositioning
• Database generation
• Attempt to enhance international presence
• Reduce costs in business processes
• Marketing one-to-one

Target audience identification

In the development of the activity of the company, in addition to current and potential customers, there are several audiences that with their performances, can influence the better or worse achievement of those objectives.

Because of this, the company must establish what the target group of the informationisand isgoingto be transmitted through the Web site.

The possible public organizations can be divided into:

• Internal: Members of the organization
• External: distributors, suppliers of products or raw materials, financial service providers and suppliers, current customers, prospects, competitive companies, administration, political and social groups, business associations and professionals, media and society in general.

In addition to establish the audience thecompanywants to reach the characteristics and needs and habitsmust be analyzed, as well as resources and experience it hasregarding the Internet.

As you can see, the choice of target audience will have a direct impact on content, design and website promotion.

Choosing a domain

The machines connected to the Internet have a unique and unrepeatable numeric address (numbers from 0-255 separated by dots), called "IP address" serving to communicate with each other.

However, numeric addresses are difficult to remember, so another way to communicate through the machine was devised, easier for humans: putting pseudonyms or "domain name".

Thus, someone who wants to access the page of a company, doesn’t need to remember the numerical combination 208.134.241.178, but can more easily memorize the following: cocacola.com

Until not too long ago, the domain was nothing more than a tool that allowed Internet users to access Web pages.

Although itstillcompletes this task, the proliferation of Web pages and commercial objectives pursued bymany of them have caused of the domain name an element whose election is important.

Otherwise, it could become a barrier to entry to the website, especially when access is made manually.

Both individuals and organizations have the opportunity to have a Web page on the Internet without having to purchase a personal domain.There are providersthatallowto host the page free.

However, this situation has a negative impact on commercial companies as normally the address entered to reach pages which qualify for this alternative will have a similar appearance and dimensions to the following:

http://www.name_hosting.com/users/pages/cocacola

In this case, the domain name is fromthe provider and the rest of the address (separated by bars /) are the directories ontheirhard drive where the consideredpage is hosted.

As can be seen, the company that has an address of this type is hinderingits memorization by people who are interested in their content and, in consequence, access to their page manually.

Therefore, for a corporate Web, it makes sense to try to get anowndomain name and normally,matching the company name.

Thus, the direction http://www.cocacola.comresults much more accessible. However, this is not always possible, because it can happen that some other person or organization already owns the domain desired by the company.

In fact, there are numerous cases of companies that are immersed in legal proceedings to have domains that according to their opinion it should be assigned to them, but they be long too ther person or companies.

"It is important that a corporate Web get a proper domain name that matches the name of the company"

Domain names must buy toan entity authorized for reléase.

The supranational organization ICANN (Internet CorporationforAssignedNames and Numbers)it’s responsible for the technical management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and also determines which companies can be registers of top leveldomains (TLD).

This organization does not deliver the domains, but has delegations worldwide. In fact, the DNS distributes the management between different sub-administrators.

It’s at the highest point of the Internet hierarchy where the top-level domains are, under which secondleveldomainnames can be registered.

Within that category, and although they are not theonlyone, we can mention the following by the importance from a business point of view:

• Some generic domains such as ".com" (organizations of a commercial nature), ".org" (nonprofit organizations) and ".net" (organizations engaged in activities of the network). They can be hired by any company authorized by ICANN
• Geographic domains (domains of two letters correspondingtothe ISO-3166 code for each territory as ".it" (for Italy), ".ar" (for Argentina), ".cn" (forChina), ".mx" (for Mexico), etc.
• Besides these, on November 16th, 2000 seven new domains by ICANN (from 44 nominations)wereapproved. These domains are specified as follows: ".biz", ".info", ".aero", ".coop", ".museum", ".name" and ".pro"

Website development

"The ideal would be that the company were imaginative and managed to offer something that gives itself a difference valued by its public respect to therest of offers existing on the Internet"

Once themoment of designing a Web page comes, it must take into account a number of considerations:

• It has to be useful for the target, so it is particularly important the correct choice of content to be included in the website.Internet users have complete freedom to choose the pages they want to access. Therefore, even if the company was able to generate a first glance at their website using the most appropriate tools for it, if their content is not attractive for the user, the visit will be short and possibly will never repeat it. Therefore, before designing the page, the company should make a deep thought on the aspects which may be of interest to their target audience and motivate them to access the website in order to include themin it.Among these aspects include interest news sector resources, product catalogs, search engines, contests, forums, newsletters, statistics, etc. However, it would be best that the company was imaginative and got to offer something that will give itself a valued by the public with respect to other existing offers on the Internet difference
• Elements that make the visit attractive and are consistent with the corporate imageshould be incorporatedintothe page. However, this appeal is subjected to technological limitations that currently thenetwork has.Because of this:
  • The size of the Web pageshould be optimized. The page designer must take into account that certain elements can cause the time required to a page toreach load is excessive. In this case, the Internet user may decide not to wait and not display the website
  • You should check how the various elements in the pagework with the most used Internet browsers, since they use a slightly different technology and as a result, the visual appearance of the pages may vary from one another
• Besides attractive, the visit has to be comfortable, so it is important to draw navegationroutes. The page has to be structured in such a way that access of the Internet to its various partsneverhinders
• The regular updating of the contents is especially important if you want to get new visits in the future. It is a misconception tothinkthateffortsdedicatedto a Web projectreachtoanendwhenthe page isalreadypublished. Reviews and updates must be consistent with the objective of generating repeatedvisits
• Interactivityshould be enhanced, which also can provide the company with a better understanding of what motivates theiraudience, thecontent,whatisinterestingtothem etc.

"It is a misconception to think that efforts devoted to the project Web should end when the page is already published"

Website hosting

Once theWeb pageiscreated, a hosting or lodgingmust be hired.

It’sabout the place where the website will be placed for itspublication on the Internet, so that users can access it via the Internet.

Once this pointis reached, the company has various alternatives:

• Virtual Hosting: is rented or given any service provider and even some Web sites. The advantage is the cost (as the service is shared with other companies), but the control you have over it is null
• Havinganown server:control of the server is total, but is very expensive and usually only large companies can make this investment
• Dedicated server: It is a rented server, but dedicated to the exclusive use of the company. What is important in this alternative is to choose the right supplier

However, efforts devoted to a Web project shouldn’t end once the page is published for consultation by any Internet user interested in it.

First of all, if traffic to the websitewantsto be generated, the company must initiate advocacywork of thewebsite that may include actions both outside the network (off-line) and within it (on-line)

Second, if it is intended that the target repeat visits to the site in the future, the company will have to make an effort to stay informed about what are the contents that interest them, with the intention to incorporate and empower them in continuous updates and reviews that people who frequent this media demand. Thus, the company will avoid having to pronounce secretly:

"We have a website, but almost nobody Access toit".