Keys to Success on Web Regardless of Company Size or Industry

For Immediate Release

Contact: WilliamDupuy

dupuy@lefile.com

November 20, 2000 -- No matter whether your business is small, medium or large, success on the Web is no longer dictated by whether you are truly a dot-com enterprise, reports LeFile.Com (http://lefile.com), the usability web-zine for business management.

And it does not matter whether you are just now beginning to develop a true Web strategy, LeFile notes in its current issue. In fact, it may be to your advantage to have waited. In the case of the Internet, the early worm may have gotten the "bird," while the "late bird" may be gobbling up everybody's lunch, thanks to all the mistakes made earlier.

The reason is that the dot-com novelty that spawned so many startups is coming to a close just like the birth of the auto industry that saw so many startup automobile brands.

"Grandfather may remember all the automobiles on the market in the early 1900s and how few brands survived into the 1950s," notes LeFile's editor William Dupuy.

Compare the time-cycle of cars with the time-cycle of the Internet, he says. Since Internet time is said to be seven times faster than normal time, 30 to 40 years from the start of the 20th century to the 1950s in car-cycle time would equal four to five years in Internet time. That is roughly the elapsed time from 1995 to 2000, the period when the Internet started to click.

"So, the same kind of evolutionary shakeout that took place with cars in the 'teens, 'twenties and 'thirties of the 1900s may just now be taking place with businesses on the Web.

"What will transpire going forward is an Internet made even healthier because it will be comprised of viable businesses. Being prepared to take part in this evolution, however, requires knowing how to be successful on the Web."

Keys to Success on the Web

Success on the Web for the cement company, the regional hospital or retailer, and the S&P 500 company alike depends on the same factors.

(1) Usability. If the visitor cannot "use" the website effectively, the business will lose that visitor. A fast-loading page unencumbered by design tricks is essential. Equally important is a homepage navigation system that easily defines how to find the essential elements of the site, to facilitate access to needed information.

(2) Content. The days of the static-brochure website are over. If repeat visits are the goal, the visitor must find something new and timely each time. Difficult? Not so much as you might expect. A few hours a week spent by a staff member can turn up interesting new "facts" or other information that can be plugged into the homepage easily, giving it a fresh appearance and a cared-for feeling.

(3) Audiences. The primary audience may be customers. But enterprises large and small must remember that there are other audiences that are important to the success of the business. These include employees, an often forgotten but critically vital resource. Keep them vitalized by engendering pride with their company's web site and by giving them current information. The same is true for suppliers and, if you are a public company, investors.

(4) Marketing. It will be increasingly difficult to find your tree in the forest of Web sites. Search engines are too busy to perform this feat for you, particularly if your site is not related to a household word. Successful Web marketing from today forward will depend on localized marketing, including branding on letterhead and business cards, in letters to customers, in notices to employees and on invoices to suppliers. If yours is a business where you advertise, put your Web site address on your ads, too, and in the Yellow Pages.

(5) Honesty and integrity. Being "true to a fault" is the best practice in business and it is no less important on the Web. The organizational Web site must adhere to the highest standards if it is to gain the confidence -- and the business -- of its visitors. You may lose visitors and never know why if you post empty promises, stretched facts, and insupportable claims on your site. Just as in the front lobby of your business, the hompeage is no place for tricks-in-fact or tricks-in-act.

The full article can be found at:

http://lefile.com/articles/marketingnotes/successkeys.htm

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