The Virtual Revolution

If your bottom line isn't where you'd like it to be, the problem might be lurking right under your feet...and over your head...and all around you. It's your office, and it might just be what's killing your business. In today's economic climate, efficiency is the number one rule of survival. One of the greatest efficiency drains for many companies is the burdensome overhead of maintaining physical offices and everything that goes along with them – landline phone systems, servers, utilities, furnishings, cleaning services...the list goes on and on. In today's economic climate, efficiency is the number one rule of survivalIn the Digital Age, the evolution of technology and communication has reshaped how companies operate and people work. The future of business is leaner, smarter and more responsive. For many businesses, having all employees working the same hours under the same roof is a luxury of a bygone era. As a result, telecommuting is no longer just a nice perk for employees but a key element of a stronger and more competitive business model. While shedding your physical office can significantly reduce your monthly operating expenses, the benefits don't stop there. According to estimates from the Telework Research Network, if every American who could work from home did so even half the time, companies would see over $230 billion in added productivity. Furthermore, going virtual can greatly strengthen the quality of your personnel, as it frees you to hire the best talent for the job - not just those who live within a reasonable commute of your office. Even better news? As virtual companies become more and more prevalent, any stigma that might once have been attached to the lack of a centralized business operation is quickly disappearing. Today's savvy clients don't see value in lavish offices. Their budgets are tight, and they need to yield the most gain possible from every dollar. As a result, they want to be confident that they are investing in results, not taking the hit for your overhead, and that they are paying for talent and expertise, not footing the bill for your conference rooms and copiers.

Are you ready to join the revolution?

Is your company primed to go virtual? There are a number of factors you need to examine before you relinquish the keys to your office in order to make sure it's a good fit for you, your employees and your clients. First, ask yourself how having a physical office directly benefits your customers. If the only answer is the perception or prestige attached to a bricks-and-mortar workplace, it's a good time to consider taking your operation virtual. As long as you ease your customers through the transition without any lapse in performance or professionalism, they'll be far more appreciative of your ability to offer more competitive pricing because you no longer have to pass along the burden of unneeded overhead expenses. Second, take into account whether there are any advantages that your company gains from your specific location that could not be matched if your employees worked remotely. For example, do you get sales leads from walk-in traffic? Do you have a strong referral network established with neighboring firms? If not, chances are there's little to lose by closing up shop. You should seriously consider transitioning to a virtual operating model and reaping the benefits of lower expensesAnother consideration is how often your employees engage in meaningful face-to-face interactions. For many businesses, employees spend the majority of their day in front of a computer screen. Even cube farm inhabitants are likely more inclined to communicate via e-mail than to stop by a coworker's desk. If this is the case, why have all your employees tethered to a single location? Next, evaluate your internal systems for communication and collaboration. Have they been put through the ringer and proven to be effective? Are they so organic that they are now second-nature to your employees? If so, you can feel more confident that they will translate successfully to a virtual working environment, albeit with a bit of tweaking to allow smart technology to compensate for lack of physical proximity. Likewise, take a look at how you gage employee performance. Do you have good methods for tracking accomplishments and measuring productivity? If your performance metrics are sound, you shouldn't need the added security of seeing your worker bees present in the office for 40 hours a week. Finally, explore the growth dynamics of your company. How quickly is your company expanding? If you're unsure how many employees you will have at the end of this year or next, operating without a traditional office means you won't be forced to roll the dice and be locked into a lease on a pricey facility that may ultimately be too large or too small to fit your needs. If the results of your self-assessment weigh in favor of shedding your physical office, you should seriously consider transitioning to a virtual operating model and reaping the benefits of lower expenses, increased efficiency, higher employee satisfaction and – most importantly – greater profitability. To help you get started on the right track, here’s a primer on what you need to know to launch and manage your virtual company: Success begins and ends with trust: Discover why trust is the cornerstone of the virtual company. Remote management: Evolve your practices and policies to foster a highly productive nontraditional work environment. Let's talk about communication: Ensure that internal communication – whether conducted via phone, e-mail, IM or video chat – always remains positive and productive. Go, team, go!: Promote good collaboration among virtual teams by giving them the right tools for the job. The virtual toolbox: Review the basic logistical necessities that will help keep your virtual company running smoothly. The middle ground: Take advantage of virtual offices for a best-of-both-worlds solution that offers the perks of a traditional office without the crushing overhead.

Success begins and ends with trust

The virtual company exists today because the evolution of technology and communication have made it possible to conduct business anywhere at any time. However, what allows the virtual company to thrive is trust. At the foundation is trust in your employees. It starts with hiring the right people – ones you can feel confident will thrive in the absence of daily supervision. Good virtual employees are self-motivated and self-disciplined, able to manage their own priorities and deadlines and open to collaborating with others in unconventional ways. Once you have a strong team in place, set them up for success by establishing clear expectations. The absence of a shared workspace doesn't mean there must or should be an absence of rules. You still need policies in place governing all the logistics that surround the work process, even though it is happening outside the confines of a traditional office. For example, what are the work hours, and are employees responsible for being accessible outside those hours? You should also set standard operating procedures for answering phones, responding to e-mails, reporting accomplishments and even backing up files. Good virtual employees are self-motivated and self-disciplined, able to manage their own priorities and deadlines and open to collaborating with others in unconventional ways.The trust your employees have in each other is also an important piece of the pie. Each person should have faith that their colleagues are equally dedicated to furthering the success of the company, even when it's harder to see the day-to-day results of their efforts. And while virtual companies benefit from the absence of office politics, it's critically important to establish strong team dynamics. For this reason, it's still a good idea to get together face-to-face from time to time. Whether it's once a week, once a month or even once a quarter, opportunities for non-virtual interaction help to promote a spirit of camaraderie. Last but far from least important, going virtual requires clients and prospects to invest a high level of trust in you and your company that they will receive the same or greater level of service and productivity as they would if everyone was working under the same roof. To this end, there are a number of things you can do to help them keep the faith. First, you must ensure that professionalism is never compromised. While it shouldn't be a secret that you run a virtual operation, employees should maintain discipline in the separation of their personal and professional lives. Even when working from home, phone calls should be conducted with the same level of formality as they would at the office, without background noise, interruptions from children or pets or excessive chatter about personal matters. Also, although you might allow some flexibility with work hours, it’s a good practice to make sure you and your employees are accessible and available to respond promptly by phone or e-mail to clients who keep a more traditional schedule. Whenever you meet in person, you and your employees should always be exceptionally polished and choose a location for the meeting that is comfortable and conducive to work. While you might be right at home doing business at your local coffeehouse, your clients might find the noise, music and other patrons distracting. Instead, consider renting a meeting space in order to help put your clients at ease and make it easier for them to focus on your presentation. There are many firms, such as Regus and Davinci, that offer highly affordable hourly rates for virtual companies that need access to professional conference rooms. Finally, when talking to your clients and prospects, always project confidence that you and your team mean business, and then make good on those promises by delivering great results in a timely manner. With trust as your cornerstone, you'll be well on your way to building a strong virtual company that is positioned to compete with any bricks-and-mortar operation.

Remote management

Great companies make it easy for employees to perform, no matter if they are working under the same roof or in dozens of home offices spread throughout the city or even the country. While the challenges of managing a virtual workforce are different from those of shepherding cube-dwellers, they are nevertheless conquerable. The key is starting with a foundation of trust and then building a solid project management infrastructure to keep your company's production engine running smoothly. First, take a critical look at the systems you currently have in place for directing workflow. Are they truly efficient and effective? Sometimes the convenience of having full-time oversight of employees who share a common workspace can compensate for or mask weaknesses in your project management systems. However, once the conventions of the bricks-and-mortar office are removed, these vulnerabilities can lead to a breakdown in production and cripple your ability to turn out high quality work in a timely manner. To keep your projects and your people on track, approach every job as a series of milestones and set interim deadlines along the way. If each phase of the project progresses on track, you'll be assured of avoiding unpleasant surprises when crunch time arrives. Conversely, if an employee misses a milestone, this problem can be identified right away, and the schedule can be adjusted to ensure that you still ultimately meet the expected delivery date. Additionally, you will need to establish a regular rhythm for employees to check in and provide work status updates to you and their fellow team members. This process can be as informal as a weekly e-mail or phone conference or as structured as logging time spent on each project every day. Finding a system that works well with your leadership style and the nature of your business is critical to helping you enforce accountability, track accomplishments, evaluate productivity and ensure that tasks are being given the right level of priority based on the time and resources invested in them. Because the dynamics of managing a remote workforce are so complex, good project management software is invaluable to the virtual company. One example of such a system is 37signals' Basecamp. For a low monthly subscription fee, this web-based tool allows you to assign tasks and deadlines, track time, share files, develop documents collaboratively and centralize communication among team members.

Let's talk about communication

For the virtual company, communication among coworkers can take many shapes and forms, from phone calls and e-mails to instant messages and video chats. No matter the vehicle, ensuring that internal communication remains positive and productive is critically important to keeping your business and its people operating at peak performance. Trust in your systems and your employees to get the job done without needing to constantly check in. Since the majority of the interactions that take place are not in person, the benefit of situational context and body language is absent. As a result, each person should be mindful of the language and format they choose when communicating with colleagues in order to guard against misinterpretation. As a general rule of thumb, e-mail is a quick and efficient means of addressing straightforward, day-to-day matters regarding projects and work process. But for subjects of a more sensitive nature, such as addressing a problem with an employee who is underperforming or resolving a conflict between coworkers, taking the time to make a phone call or even arrange a face-to-face meeting will avoid damaging morale unnecessarily. By investing a little extra care and consideration in daily communication, everyone can work together to prevent misunderstandings and feelings of ill-will that can snowball into greater problems over time. As the leader of a workforce that is scattered across many different locations, it is your responsibility to make sure that you devote time to reaching out to every member of your team. Just because you run a virtual company doesn't mean anyone should feel invisible. Keep a healthy dialogue flowing by asking questions and soliciting feedback on a regular basis. However, don't fall into the trap of overcompensating for the lack of daily face-time with an overabundance of disruptive communication or meetings. Trust in your systems and your employees to get the job done without needing to constantly check in, and don't let the administrative minutiae of progress reporting become so burdensome that you compromise productivity. Depending on the size of your organization, holding all-hands or team-based meetings once a week can be a good opportunity to review accomplishments, touch base on projects and update attendees on company business. In the meantime, let quick phone calls, succinct e-mails and even brief instant message or video chat sessions suffice to answer questions that are crucial to keeping the work process flowing.

Go, team, go!

For colleagues who share an office, e-mail is typically the go-to means of communication. It's quick, it's easy, and it allows the recipients to read and respond at their convenience with minimal disruption. However, for virtual workers, e-mail is an insufficient vehicle to facilitate collaboration among team members who are working in many different locations. For your employees to collaborate efficiently and effectively, they need more than just a one-dimensional means of communicating back and forth. At a basic level, they need access to a shared knowledge base with the latest information pertaining to your customers and projects. More importantly, they need a way to work collectively on developing new documents as well as to brainstorm, bounce rough ideas off one another and get feedback from colleagues. In addition, they need a way to monitor workflow and keep tabs on the status of active projects. Lastly, they need tools that will help them stay connected on a personal level in order to promote a healthy spirit of camaraderie and minimize the occurrence of interpersonal conflicts. The good news is that there are three simple and cost-effective solutions that will fulfill almost all of these needs and keep remote employees working together as seamlessly as if they were under the same roof:

Instant messaging

Instant messaging is an easy, no-cost way to encourage real-time conversation and communication. With many IM clients such as Skype, iChat and Yahoo! Messenger, your employees can exchange instant messages one-on-one or with a group as well as engage in video chats for an even more personal experience. Like a virtual water cooler, instant message chats are a great vehicle for spontaneous brainstorming or problem-solving sessions.

Google Docs

The latest version of this excellent cloud-based system allows multiple users to create and edit shared word processing documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, charts and presentations. The new document editor now allows up to 50 co-authors to contribute to and edit the same file simultaneously, with color-coded real-time updates. Additionally, inline comments and a shared interface for chat and co-writing eliminates the need for team members to switch back and forth between windows as they carry on conversation about the task at-hand.

Project management software

Good project management software is a lifeline for virtual teams. For example, 37signals' Basecamp is a low-cost web-based tool that allows your employees to manage tasks and deadlines, track time spent on projects, share files, develop documents collaboratively and centralize communication among team members. The most important thing to remember is that the tools you choose have to fit your industry, your company and your employees, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses that currently exist within your work processes and the dynamics of your team. There's no need to become a slave to technology; there are plenty of available options that will make it easier to get work done without creating more work to manage your chosen systems.

The virtual toolbox

As more and more companies make the leap to going virtual, more and more vendors are competing to deliver agile solutions to replace relics of the traditional office like landline phone systems, fax machines and file servers. Even better, most of these new services are far more affordable and versatile than their antiquated predecessors. Here are just a few of the many available tools that will help the day-to-day operations of your virtual company run seamlessly:

Voice communication

For voice communication, providing each of your employees with a cell phone is an obvious solution. But how do you give your customers a single access point to this network of mobile workers? Just because you are giving up your office doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your company phone line, thanks to virtual phone systems such as Grasshopper. For as little as $9.99 per month, Grasshopper gives you a dedicated local or toll-free phone number with unlimited extensions, each with its own call forwarding, voicemail and message delivery settings. Better yet, your Grasshopper number can even double as a fax line and can deliver your incoming faxes straight to e-mail as PDFs.

File sharing and archiving

There are many services that allow you to store and access files remotely. Dropbox is a user-friendly file-syncronization tool that offers two gigabytes of secure online storage for free or up to 100 gigabytes for a low monthly fee. Dropbox works with files of any size or type as well as with Macs and PCs. Shared folders allow multiple people to work with the same set of files, and Dropbox automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected, so you don't ever have to worry about losing data to a computer crash, accidentally deleting files or knowing who has the latest version of a document. You can even access and edit files from any computer or mobile device via Dropbox's web interface.

Skype

Skype is another indispensable multitasker for virtual companies. Skype is best known as the software application that allows users to make free voice calls over the Internet to other Skype users anywhere in the world, but it also offers many other helpful features. Using Skype, employees can exchange instant messages, participate in group chats, hold phone and video conferences and engage in screen sharing for presentations or collaborative work sessions – all at no cost to you. You can even use Skype to conduct conference calls with customers who are on a landline or mobile phone for a nominal fee, and the audio quality is crystal-clear.

The middle ground

So you're interested in taking your company virtual, but you'd still like the prestige of giving sales presentations in a corporate boardroom? Or perhaps you'd like the personal touch of a receptionist answering your company phone line? Don't let these desires stop you from shedding the burdensome overhead of your corporate office. There's a better, more cost-effective way to enjoy the perks of an office without footing the bill to maintain a dedicated space 24/7. Virtual offices are an ideal solution if you want to take advantage of the operational efficiencies of a remote workforce but you serve a more conservative clientele. With the growing popularity of virtual companies, a new concept has emerged called the "virtual office." For less than $100 a month, you can secure a business address in a preferred area of town to publish on your company stationery, business cards and website, and your mail and packages will be received and forwarded to you. For an additional fee, you can also have a few days of private office access each month and a dedicated phone line answered by a receptionist in your company's name, with calls and messages handled per your exact instructions. You can even rent meeting rooms by the hour on an as-needed basis. Virtual offices are an ideal solution if you want to take advantage of the operational efficiencies of a remote workforce but you serve a more conservative clientele that prefers to conduct business in a traditional office setting. In addition, most virtual office services are offered à la carte, so you can easily adjust your level of service and your monthly expenses as your business needs evolve. For more information on virtual offices, a quick search on Google or Yahoo will yield a number of reputable firms, such as Regus and Davinci Virtual, that offer a wide array of highly flexible options to suit your specific needs.

Seize the day

By and large, technology has evolved faster than corporate culture, which explains why a relatively small number of companies are currently taking advantage of telecommuting. However, today, with the advent of more specialized cloud-based project management and collaboration tools and clients that are savvy to the impact of high overhead on the value delivered for each dollar they spend, the momentum is building for a virtual revolution. Shepherding your company through the transition from a traditional bricks-and-mortar office to a virtual operation is a complex process that requires buy-in on all fronts. It mandates that your managers adapt their thinking, practices and systems of communication in order to direct and coordinate teams remotely. It challenges your employees to practice the self-discipline and flexibility to work productively in a non-traditional environment. It asks your clients to make a leap of faith that your company can master the unique demands of a virtual operation and realize the benefits of greater productivity and more manageable expenses. It may not be feasible to make the leap right away or all at once. However, even if you take it one step at a time, every outmoded system that you shed is like cutting away an anchor that’s weighing your business down. Similarly, every time you replace one of these systems with a technology-based solution that helps your company and its people work smarter, you’ll be making significant strides toward building a highly evolved business model that is armed to compete aggressively in today’s marketplace.

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10 Commandments of Web Development for Business

In today’s marketplace, there is no single asset more foundational to the growth of your business than your website. Yet all too often, business growth objectives are not put front and center in the web development process. Every site that exists within the Web marketing universe can be categorized into one of two basic types: the one-hit brochure site and the superstar site that makes the cash register ring. To grow, you need a superstar site. To successfully build a superstar site, there are 10 fundamental rules that must be followed. Everyone involved throughout the life of the site, especially you the business owner or marketer, must understand and adhere to these commandments. Don’t be intimidated by the technology that exists behind the scenes. Own the process and make sure your site serves your business, not the other way around.

Put business growth objectives first

Due to the complexities of the architecture underlying any website, there has long been the misperception that web development is primarily a function of IT or engineering. As a result, technical capabilities, goals and trends – rather than business objectives – tend to be what drive the process. In reality, website development is first and foremost a function of marketing and business growth and must be treated as such from the ground up. Whether you are launching a new site or rebuilding your existing site, the first step is to draw up a list of all business objectives for your organization, whether it is to increase your customer base, expand your share of an existing market, enter a new market or all of the above. This list should be exhaustive, with each goal assigned a rank in order of priority. Only then can you begin the process of translating business objectives into objectives for your website – for driving traffic, increasing awareness of your brand, boosting sales and converting visitors into customers into fans. Ultimately, this analysis will provide the razor-sharp clarity you need to direct those building the site, making the development process much easier and more straightforward. It is also the only way to ensure that the end result not only reflects your organization – what it is, what it does, where it is and where it’s going – but effectively promotes its goals.

Know your audience from the inside out

Once you’ve clearly stated your business objectives, the next step is to gain a thorough understanding of your target audience. Map out all of the various segments – from those on the fringe of your market to interested prospects to your existing customer base to your brand evangelists – so that you can determine how your website can best serve each group to further your goals. Identify and examine each segment methodically. What percentage of your total audience does each comprise? What differentiates one from another? Who exists within each segment, and what are their motivations? What level of sophistication do they have regarding your product or service? How does your product or service affect their lives? What are the sales objections to overcome with each one? Then, take it a step further to understand each segment in ways that transcend their direct relationship to your business. What interests them? What are they passionate about? How do they spend their leisure time? What do they read? Is there an opportunity for you to play a part in their lives that goes beyond your immediate business offering? You must also understand the factors that cause an individual to move from one segment to another. What motivates them to come to your site or to your store? What brings them to that point of buying from you? What is it about the product or experience you offer that prompts a customer to become an evangelist who draws additional prospects to your organization? Completing this analysis will give you a clear picture of your entire audience. It will enable you to speak to each segment directly and relevantly without the static of inapplicable elements getting in the way, appealing to their unique set of motivations to propel them along the continuum from outer rim prospect to brand evangelist. This is the basis not only of good site architecture but of building strong traffic and of sharpening the sales conversion process.

Organize your site around motivations

At this point, you have identified and weighed your business objectives and profiled your target audience. Now you must apply your analysis of goals and motivations to create your site map. No matter the specific interests or demographic profile of your target audience, ultimately all users within the web marketing universe fall into one of five categories. These are:

1. The casual visitor: Those along the outer rim of your market that are available for you to capture and drive to your site
2. The repeat visitor: Those that make use of your website’s function, content or utility (not to be confused with your direct offering) on a regular basis
3. The interested sales prospect: Those who are interested your organization’s product or service offering
4. The customer: Those that buy from your website
5. The fan: Those who love you, what you do or your products enough to be an evangelist for your brand

Your site map must identify the elements required to move your audience along the continuum from casual visitor to fan. It must focus on providing funnels to propel visitors toward action. The recipe for successful business growth today begins with mastering these objectives in your site’s architecture. Casual visitors need a reason to come to your site in the first place. This involves creating either compelling content or purpose in utility. The key to driving traffic to your site lies in making an investment in building your reputation on the Web for providing resources, inspiration and expertise that are meaningful to the casual visitor. Converting casual visitors to core, repeat users requires exceptional effort in the areas of content and utility. If your approach favors content, then you need to publish original content on a regular basis in order to give your visitors a reason to subscribe and return frequently. If your method leans toward providing utility, then you need to offer powerful functions that are unique in your market in order for your visitors to bookmark you as a resource. Now that you have a strong influx of visitors to your site, it is critical to make the most of the opportunity to expose those visitors to your brand and your company’s offering in a way that will produce consistent sales results. Return to your analysis of your audience segments, their motivations and their potential objections. Ensure that your site provides solutions to their needs and answers to their questions in order to overcome objections and convert prospects into customers. Your site map must identify the elements required to move your audience along the continuum from casual visitor to fan.Once a customer has been won, the next step is to cultivate their ongoing loyalty. This type of visitor is not like the casual or repeat visitor. To promote the growth of your business, you must not only to serve your customers in order to keep them but over-serve them in order to transform them into fans. The fan is the most highly desired state for your customer to attain. Fans do your marketing for you in a way that other methods simply cannot rival. They come back again and again, bringing with them more visitors and helping to create new customers. Taking care of your fans entails its own responsibilities and set of motivations that must be addressed. You must engage these people in order to fuel their evangelism. Hand them a megaphone and give them 15 minutes of fame. Open lines of communication to allow them to offer feedback. Provide added incentive by rewarding their loyalty. Build an online community of like-minded individuals that they can identify with and participate in. Whatever your approach, make sure that your site map clearly identifies pathways for creating and nurturing fans of your brand. Your success in today’s marketplace is founded in the decisions you make in creating your site’s blueprints. Your site map is not just another stage in development – it is your strategic marketing plan for business growth.

Never implement without the ability to measure

A superstar site is not a brochure. It is an ever-evolving, dynamic entity that drives growth and is the catalyst around which your fan base develops. As such, everything your site does must be able to be reshaped, retooled and sharpened for maximum effectiveness. You must know what works well and what doesn’t when measured against your business objectives and the motivations of your target audience segments. The specifics of this analysis are different for every website and company. However, in broad terms, your site can be evaluated based on its performance along two indices, referred to as the ESM/ISM model:

• External Site Motivator (ESM): What brings visitors to the site? Where do they come from? What are they interested in?
• Internal Site Motivator (ISM): What motivates visitors to take action or evolve along the continuum into the next stage of user?

Optimizing the performance of your site is a lot like playing golf. Few hit the sweet spot consistently right off the bat. In the same way practice makes perfect in sports, great developers of website architecture, design and community have mastered the ability to direct the evolution of the sites they create in response to these performance metrics. Whether you are a local retailer or a worldwide software company, remaining diligent in the ongoing analysis of your site as well as each individual element you implement will allow you to eliminate what doesn’t work and promote what does.

Always opt for simplicity in design

The number one reason visitors leave a website is confusion. Either they do not find what they want quickly enough, the site presents obstacles that interrupt their progress or a lack of organization and quality content yields an unsatisfying user experience. The Internet is riddled with sites where creative design has been allowed to take priority over interface design, leaving the content and business objectives to suffer. The net result of this is a negative user experience and a poor impression of the brand. In Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think, he goes on a warpath on confusing interfaces and flashy gimmicks that stop users dead in their tracks. The fact is, few websites – particularly those that strive to create a reputation for content and utility – focus on simplicity and ease-of-use. As a rule, the more a website does and the more it offers, the more difficult it is to navigate, as developers struggle to overcome more rigorous demands on interface design and usability. A good creative framework is one that does its job – funneling visitors according to motivation and promoting action – and then gets out of the way. Ensure that your site focuses on providing value in what it says and the functionality it offers rather than on showcasing a flashy interface that will only confuse or frustrate the user. To use a familiar example, think of a magazine’s interface. There are a table of contents and page numbers. The interface is simple – just turn the page – and as a result, the emphasis is inherently on the magazine’s content. Few websites – particularly those that strive to create a reputation for content and utility – focus on simplicity and ease-of-use.And while a website’s content is exponentially more dynamic and robust than that of a magazine, its interface and navigation should always meet the challenge of staying equally streamlined and intuitive. Let’s take a look at the master of interface design: Apple. From its website to its devices to its operating system, Apple creates products with tremendous technological capabilities. However, what defines Apple and differentiates them from their competitors is one thing – simplicity. In addition, you must be sure to guard your website against design fatigue. It is easy to look at a site one time and like it. To keep your investment in tact, you and your website designers must consider how the site’s design will stand up over the course of a thousand page views and many years. Strive in every way to protect your site’s content and its business objectives, and keep things simple with a design that doesn’t just look good today but stands the test of time.

Master the art of creating good content and publish it regularly

Content is not your brochure copy. It is not your sales pitch for the product or service you are selling. It is, however, about you, what you do and what you think as well as what others are interested in or inspired by around your direct offering. It does not require an investment by the viewer in your direct offering but must be of interest on its own merits. To compare it with a more familiar system, the business operation of a magazine relies on two parts: content that is compelling or interesting to the reader and advertisements that are in someway either related to that content or to the reader directly. The truth is business growth depends on quality content. Sales, conversions and customers are a numbers game, and the traffic you draw to your website directly correlates to your bottom line. Conquering the challenge of bringing interested, applicable prospects to your site is the first step, and this is achieved by having a reputation for content. Every business can do this. If you have customers, then they have interest in buying from you. You create a solution for them and, as such, have a greater opportunity to be a part of their lives. If you are still uncertain how to proceed, then you are not alone. Mastering the art of creating good content on a regular basis requires a complete departure from the mentality of conventional advertising, and a good trustcasting company is worth its weight in gold for the guidance it can provide in this area. Consult with your site’s architect and make sure that you have a plan in place to use content to drive traffic over the long-term.

Propel visitors through your site

Developing a reputation for your site as a source of fresh, compelling information that captures and holds the reader’s interest is the key to getting visitors. This is the reason behind the tried-and-true mantra “content is king.” However, many sites that strive to offer good content do not invest in sound information architecture. They do a poor job of mapping the relationship between the content catalog and all other elements within the website. If a visitor is perusing the content on your site, it is because they are interested in something about what you have to say or show. Ask yourself what elements within your direct offering relate to this area of interest? Create an organizational tree that identifies the pertinent elements of all content and use in conjunction with keyword tags that can relate elements that may not be able to be structured. Integrate these elements into your site’s architecture. Never let the current piece of content being viewed be the last one.For every piece of content, the website’s framework should provide avenues to promote further reading or action. If a user is reading an article about best practices for baking, then entice them to delve deeper into the site with a collection of bread recipes or a slideshow of staff recommendations for their favorite tools of the trade. Perhaps there are related actions such as a set of kitchen utensils for sale in an online store which are used in a featured recipe. Consider also that many visitors don’t arrive through the front door. If your content is truly great, it is going to get picked up by other sources. Visitors that land on a specific piece of content need to see that there is a catalog of related material that also serves their interests. You invest so much in driving visitors to your site, don’t waste the opportunity once you have them there. Never let the current piece of content being viewed be the last one. Make sure all of your content is related and that it is presented in a way that keeps the user turning the pages along their track of interest. You want to create a powerful hold over your audience so that they must turn you off reluctantly. You want them to see that there is more available to them than can be consumed in one session. Seeing that you not only have one interesting thing to say but that you have an entire catalog on a subject gives people a reason to bookmark your website, turning the casual visitor into an exponentially more valuable repeat user.

Separate technology from content

Good websites are built on strong foundations that allow for constant growth and evolution as business and performance metrics dictate. As such, your web developer’s approach to building your site must be one guided by a long-term vision. Your website is an ongoing investment, not a one-time project that can be checked off a task list. The site must have a solid foundation that can support changes that sharpen its performance and meet your company’s ever-changing needs without costly rebuilding. Content must be separated from the website’s design and framework. Each piece of the site must be able to stand on its own and evolve independently without interrupting others. As the person charged with business growth in your company, it can be a difficult task to ensure that your site is being built in the right way. This is akin to knowing if your house is built cheaply or with sound materials and methods. You have to know a bit about the process and have the experience to tell the difference. Ask these questions of yourself and your web developers to ensure your site is being built for the long-haul:

1. Is there a clear and strict separation in the site’s content and its technical framework? Are all required elements of your content mapped out?
2. Can the styles and elements of all content within the site be changed in one place easily?
3. Can the CMS (content management system) evolve with your site and its content?
4. How expensive is it to replace the site’s framework and organization? How will this affect your content?
5. Is each function of the site modularized and changeable without interrupting other portions of the site?
6. Are you dependent on any proprietary technology?
7. How difficult would it be for another web developer pick up where the previous developers left off?
8. Can you easily port your content to a mobile platform?
9. Are the content catalog and all site elements arranged and organized to allow for the relationships required now and in the future?
10. Envision where your site should be in one, two and 10 years. Can it achieve these goals based upon the foundation you are building? Can your content catalog and its supporting database expand with your business goals?

The technical side of website development can be very difficult to understand. Often confusion in this area results in a site that is too difficult to update or evolve, leaving the company with a dead, stale, ineffectual site that eats up funds rather than grows business.

Empower people to manage content

It is a common occurrence that websites – even the ones that start with the best of intentions and a great foundation – falter when it comes to publishing meaningful content consistently. Just as content is the lifeblood of a superstar website, the site that fails to live up to this commitment after launch sabotages its reputation immediately. The key to maintaining a consistent flow of great content is shaping the organization’s culture around it. Websites must be built with sound content management systems that give control of the dynamic content to the right people within their area of responsibility and expertise. While not all organizations have multiple departments managing its functions, a website’s CMS must be flexible enough to allow discrete access to the right people in the right areas. Human resources must control job postings; public relations should have access to manage news; volunteer coordinators must control opportunity postings; product managers must control product details and moderators need to approve comments to feature articles and blog postings. Having invested correctly in the steps to build a superstar website, your organization’s culture of marketing must be reformed to support it. Following good practices and planting a good foundation, you must apply the required due diligence to determine changes in your organization in order to keep the website publishing and in constant forward movement.

Plug into the greater Web marketing universe

Websites don’t come with visitors. The visitors are at other sites, where they are engaging in conversation, discussing news, organizing meetings and sharing content. In order to build traffic, your site must be built on an open model. Even the best websites cannot perform well in a vacuum. The conversation in your industry and around your business offering is happening outside of your site, whether you are there or not. As such, your website must be built to interact in all applicable communities outside of itself. Your visitors must be easily able to share content with other sites. Moreover, you need to be an active participant in other networks in order to allow people to connect with your brand outside of your domain. In doing so, you are not only plugging in to existing communities that have millions of regular users but also building a path that leads back to your own website in order to being the process of creating community around your own brand. What’s more, search engines recognize the leaders in categories by how well-established their websites and their content are outside their domain. Popularity in the greater community means higher rankings from search engines, which in turn funnels more visitors to your website. Part of the responsibility for following these rules resides with the site’s developer. However, your organization must also make a priority of incorporating these practices in its daily operations and systems. This blueprint for success will pay enormous dividends if you not only build a website that interacts with the greater Web universe but also maintain an open philosophy in your message, content and participation.

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