Tim Steeves dot com

Here’s a short list of free video
hosting sites that you can use to display your streaming video content – apart from YouTube, that is. Most of these provide code for individual videos to enable you to embed them in your site directly. I’ll try and include a couple of lines highlighting the main features & USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of each, wherever possible. The list is alphabetically arranged and not in the order of usefulness or popularity.

A video uploading and sharing service by AtomFilms – which is a division of the MTV Networks. As a result you can find a lot of unique web-shows hosted at this
site. Not much information is available about their hosting features. However, as a MTV service you can expect the standards to be quite high. Features channel based organisation and member groups / communities.

blip.tv promises to bring to you shows – the kind of stuff you might find on television but won’t. Highly rated by PC World and Business 2.0 magazines this
site syndicates its content with the likes of AOL Video, Yahoo! Video, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MSN Video, Google Video etc. thus effectively multiplying your reach by millions. If you’ve got what it takes to create a great show, it may even get broadcast on this TV channel that blip.tv owns. And if your show’s a hit, they allow you to pick your own advertisers and earn revenue. Flash, QuickTime, DivX, 3gp – more or less all major formats are supported.

Brightcove lets you build and launch your own internet TV station. You can have your channel up and running within minutes and retain full control over the program schedule. Videos uploaded by other users can be incorporated into your shows too. Your channel is syndicated with other major players on the net and you can earn revenue through advertising as well as video sales. Features a pretty eye-candy interface.

ClipShack is a community for videophiles – a place for sharing your videos with the world. Its run by Reality Digital, Inc. – a company with years of experience in catering to the multimedia needs of the corporate sector. Pretty basic interface.

Crackle (formerly known as Grouper) is a Sony Pictures Entertainment company. It acts as a streaming entertainment network dedicated to the discovery and development of pioneering video creators across a diverse range of genres. Crackle supports multi-platform syndication to Sony devices, IPTV and major social networking sites. Crackle is all about “launching tomorrow’s stars today” and can serve as a serious platform for aspiring directors. There are contests going on all the time to hand-pick the most innovative creators and launch them in collaboration with Sony Pictures and other leading media partners.

Dailymotion is another humongous
hosting cum sharing service. They have the standard set of features wrapped with a strict set of rules that prohibits any kind of adult or explicit content. If there’s one thing that sets it apart from the crowd – it’s the JukeBox feature. Video-Blogging and direct uploads from webcam supported too.

FlickLife counts among the handful of revenue sharing hosts that there are. You get to broadcast your own videos to the world at no cost at all and yet get some moollah in return. Features buddy lists. FlickLife is a privately owned company based in Columbus, Ohio.

Flukiest is an interactive community for sharing and managing digital media by artists, photographers, designers, musicians, writers, directors, producers, and technologists – which in other words mean it’s a photo and video
hosting service. There seems to be a tagging engine at large judging from the humongous tag-cloud you encounter on the front page. Other services include email, buddy list, forums, blog and a separate music video section.

FLURL allows you to upload and share videos under a set of pre-existing categories. Their rating system consists of a meter that displays the FLURL or HURL rating of a video. Adult content can be found profusely (there’s a separate above 18 section). Adult Filtering options are available but turned off by default for any new visitors.

Go Fish is a largish
hosting
site which helps you promote your directorial skills. The primary objective of this
site is to give you your 15 minutes of fame. Documentaries, comedies, spoofs, pranks, and even episodic dramas – all are welcome here. The interface is pretty dense (and dark) and will particularly appeal to the gamers. It’s pretty easy to use though. If you’re seeking a wide exposure for your work, this could be the host for you.

Jumpcut strives to make the uploading & sharing of videos and photos a fun and easy thing. Apart from instant publishing and user communities – Jumpcut has this unique Remix feature using which you can create your own version of someone else’s video without destroying the original work. For this they’ve made available a very easy-to-use and feature rich online video editing tool. At the end of your creative spree, you can let the community decide whether you’ve managed to outperform the original director.

This is a German service and the interface language is Deutsch. However, the registration process and controls are pretty similar to any of the common video hosts – so you shouldn’t find it too difficult to make your way around this one, even if you don’t know the language. Incidentally, there is a small link right at the bottom of the page that allows you to switch to the English version. Keep in mind though – majority of the audience is German.

A community based video sharing service with specialised channels where you can upload related videos. Consequently jumping channels brings up a horde of thematic videos. Permitted uploads include photos, audio tracks and videos. Features nearly unlimited (?) uploads – which in other words mean that they probably have paid, high-storage plans as well. There’s an inbuilt social networking feature in this and hence they allow you to deck up your profile in your own way using an advanced template creator. Drag & drop functionality for quick setup of photo / video journals.

Channels, Favorites, Subscriptions, Videos, Photos – nothing out of the place that can make this service really stand out. It’s got a good blend of general features including a Hit or Miss rating system. However, it’s probably one of the very few which offer direct recording from webcams (see Viddler and VideoEgg).

Myubo comes in four linguistic flavours – Czech, Deutsch, English and Slovak. It sports a mechanism to upload, view and share live and pre-recorded video via mobile 2.5G and 3G networks such as GPRS, EDGE, CDMA or UMTS, web and fixed IP networks. Pretty much covers the whole consumer wireless spectrum. Among offered features are channel based organisation, Mobile TV and user communities.

Revver has a clever mechanism that helps it track and monetize the uploaded videos as they spread virally across the internet – so “no matter where your creativity travels, you benefit“. Your uploaded video is paired with a targeted advertisement and the revenue is split 50/50 with you. Those who share and spread the videos get to keep part of the spoils too. 20% of the ad revenue is handed to them. Of particular interest to the developers is the Revver API, which allows one to build a video-sharing
site complete with user accounts, uploading, sharing tools and access to the full Revver library of videos. The bandwidth is covered by Revver and the ad revenue is split three ways – you, Revver and the content creator.

A basic hosting service with standard features and channel-based organisation. Allows adult content and has a SafeSearch filter in place. One upper it has compared to other services is that it allows for direct mobile based uploads through MMS (currently in UK & Europe only).

This is one service that I probably don’t have much to talk about. It’s part of the reknowned MSN Suite of online applications. Offers all the standard bookmarking, commenting, tagging, rating and sharing features and has it’s own flash-based player.

A service by iFILM that has an extensive library of movie clips, music videos, short films, video game trailers, action sports and its popular ‘viral videos’ collection. Since October 2005, it’s a part of the Viacom network – so one can definitely trust this one. Of course you can expect all the latest and hottest of the videos here and can upload your own too. Has clips of daily TV shows from around the world.

A video hosting service by DivX for people who love videos. DivX, if you remember, is the group which came up with a similarly named format of video encoding for online distribution. DivX videos can be of pretty high quality and are rendered through a custom player which is available as a plug-in for most famous browsers. According to the Stage6 team, “Anyone can become a publisher, anyone can build an audience and every video available on Stage6 is compatible with over 70 million consumer electronics devices from every major manufacturer, making it easy to play back Stage6 videos on your television or portable device.“

Tuberoo and its sister concern Shoutwire – both of which offer video hosting and sharing services. Tuberoo recently opened up the Beta Testing of its mobile video service which will send out one Tuberoo video to your mobile everyday. Adult & explicit content is allowed and there’s no SafeSearch filter in effect.

The name comes from the German word ??ber – which means “above” or “over”. The word migrated into English as uber and has come to mean. “super something that nothing is better than“. On similar lines, ??berme claims to be the ubercoolest place to showcase you uberific moments through photos, videos & blogs, form like-minded discussion groups to debate on uberhot topics or just chat the day away with your uberbuddies through their instant messenger. In short a high-flung social media site that contrives to capture the uber-elite netizens. Uberwap – a personal mobile portal keeps you connected on the move. Last but not the least – thoroughly customisable profile / homepage. Pretty ubertastic if you ask me !

Another site that offers all the standard features – video sharing & organisation, social networking, discussion groups, playlists, customisable profiles etc. There’s rating system in place with which you can vouch for other’s content. Allow for direct importing of videos from other hosting sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Grouper, Myspace etc. Has a couple of widgets & gadgets for your site / blog.

A site with simplistic but likable Web 2.0 style interface that allows you to upload, enhance and share your digital videos. Similar to VideoEgg, they offer a mechanism through which you can directly record / upload your videos using your webcam without requiring the use of any third-party recording tool. Viddler employs a mechanism which searches for content inside the videos, thus making your uploads search results relevant. Has their own flash-based player.

VideoEgg features one of the slickest interfaces I’ve come across and offers a bag of really useful online video manipulation tools (cropping, resizing, direct recording etc.). Allows sharing through email, direct HTML embedding and Permalinks. The videos are displayed through their own interactive embeddable flash-based player. High-end sites with > 1 million visitors per month can sign-up for a revenue sharing partnership where ads are displayed beside each video and the revenue handed down to the partner. Employs content-filtering to weed out inappropriate videos.

A basic video uploading and sharing site. Has the look & feel of YouTube in it’s teething stages. What’s with the outdated template design and grainy logos? Simplicity is good but eye-candy is the order of the day and in order to survive the web-age, you gotta indulge in it as quick as possible. Has a video rating system (on a scale of 10) that shows badges about the size of the Digg badges beside each video. Sports some pre-categorised sections like Funny, Music, Stupid, Amateur, Crazy etc. Photo uploads permitted too. Claims to allow unlimited uploads.

Another cool video hosting service that has been around since end 2004 and reflects the Web 2.0 genre of web-design. They share helpful pointers with you in case you’re lacking ideas regarding creation of unique video content. In action are a bunch of highly configurable privacy options with which you can create fine-grained access control lists to allow only select group of people to view your videos. In short, you choose who exactly sees which of your videos. Has personalised homepage where you can neatly arrange all of your favourite videos. Allows tagging of videos.

VuMe (most likely pronounced as View-Me) pays you for uploading quality content – video, audio as well as photos. Small banner ads are displayed beside each of these and the revenue generated when visitors watch your content and partly passed down to you. Every hit on your video, image, or audio clip counts.

Zeec is another German video hosting service that you won’t find so difficult to navigate around. This one too allows you to directly record / update videos off your webcam. The interface follows the Web 2.0 ideal and has a vague resemblance to the Last.FM music cum social networking site.

This one offers your own sub-domain under ZippyVideos to host your profile (e.g. profile.zippyvideos.com). Unlimited uploads are permitted pertaining to the fact that no single upload is greater than 20MB. Privacy options, video organisation and social networking are an integral part of the package.

Zoopy proudly presents itself as South Africa’s first video and photo sharing social network. It’s a pretty basic service with an easy-going note that can be spotted all over the site. There’s a standing challenge that attempts to coax the hidden director in you to come out into the limelight.

Did I miss out on any of the big ones? Feel free to leave a comment on your favourite one and I’ll add it to the list.

Original Post from chaos-labritories.

Building a website isn’t as easy as it looks! There are tens of thousands of websites that make common mistakes in content, layout, usability and clarity. Consider some of the most common errors made by developers.

The Boring Website

Your company website should be designed to interest or excite your viewers, not to bore them to tears. A website should pitch your company and its products and services clearly, without unnecessary “fluff” or overly detailed technical information.

The Misleading Website

As always, honesty is the best policy. Your site must accurately portray your company and its products and services. While it is important to sell yourself to potential customers, do not create a false impression through exaggeration.

The Cluttered Website

An uncluttered, clean site is not only visually attractive, but is also effective in making your sales pitch. Limit the amount of content on each page, and avoid overloading your pages with graphics. Your site navigation bar must be consistent – located either across the top, or along the side of your pages.

The Hard-to-Read Website

A common web design flaw is creating pages with text too small for the average reader to view without difficulty. Use an uncluttered sans-serif font (such as Arial or Verdana) with a minimum point size of at least 10 or higher. Black text on a white background is easiest to read. Coloured backgrounds with coloured text usually results in an unprofessional looking, illegible page.

The Slow Website

This is a common error by developers who overload their web pages with high-end multimedia that is only accessible to viewers with high-speed connections. Make your pages accessible to all viewers on any Internet connection.

The Useless Website

The useless website fails to provide the viewer with meaningful information about your company and its products and services. Websites that do not provide basic information, such as product descriptions, will often lead to a frustrating user experience.

The Scrolling Website

The scrolling website refers to improperly designed sites that require long vertical scroll bars, or even worse, horizontal scroll bars, to view the entire page. A website’s horizontal dimensions should never exceed common computer screen widths (that width limit is currently around 1000 pixels). A website that is too wide will result in a horizontal scroll bar on a viewer’s browser, one of the worst design mistakes possible.

The Distracting Website

A sure sign of an amateurish website is the use of distracting graphics, or animated gifs. These pesky graphics usually add little value to the content of a web page. Other unnecessary elements include blinking text, silly icons like “top 5% visited site on the web”, and hit counters.

The Unlawful Website

Beware of the use of any images or media without the permission of the copyright owner. You have nothing to gain by “borrowing” someone else’s intellectual property. Invest in custom photography or royalty-free images and media, which are relatively inexpensive and readily available.

The Reproducing Website

Many companies now provide software to fight reproducing websites. The reproducing site involuntarily opens up pop-up windows when a viewer browses to a certain page. Not only is this distracting, it can be very confusing and frustrating for the viewer.

The Rebel Website

Rebel websites serve less as a source of business information, but more as an outlet for designers to make a statement in an unconventional way. That they defy conventional standards means rebel websites are generally poor in terms of usability, clarity, and content.

Impressions count. Not just first impressions, but all the way from first to last and at each stage in between. You can lose someone at any point in the process and, as many have learnt the hard way, the web is one of the most unforgiving forums.

Most marketing strategies and tools put your business “in their face”. Not so with the web. This is a forum where people seek your product out and when they find you they are finding hundreds, if not thousands, of your competitors at the same time. One bad experience and they’ll simply go next door. Why should they be loyal when there is so much to choose from? The one exception to this is with e-commerce, where users will put up with a degree of discomfort in order to use a tried, tested and safe supplier, but for the rest of us who are merely using the web as an advertising portal, there is no such tolerance.

Speed
The first impression when someone arrives at your site. If it has taken too long to load, they may simply give up and go somewhere else. People who use the internet are generally doing so because of speed and convenience. Take those two elements away and you leave them with no reason to be there. When you are waiting for a page to load, even 5 seconds can feel like forever, let alone 20 or 30 seconds or more.

Loading speed needs to be tested continuously over a period, using different browsers and computers, at different times of the day, week and month. Why? because the internet is like a huge highway that at times gets congested. If you only test once, you could get a very skewed impression.

Checklist Does your site load quickly on various browsers, PC’s and connection speeds, at different times of the day and week.

Look
Second impression. When people arrive at your site, what do they see? Are the colours pleasant and easy on the eye? Can you actually read the text or is it so small that you have to squint? Perhaps so large that you feel as if you need to move back a few paces.

Items to consider include:

• Page is not over-filled or too “busy”. Will your visitors feel overwhelmed and be left wondering where on earth to start? It’s fine to have lots of information, but it should be laid out logically and with enough white space in between to make it easy to compartmentalise. Remember, the human mind is used to order and logic …. even for the most chaotic of us.Graphic overload and “gimmicks” are another potential problem. Graphics should serve a purpose and be limited to what is really needed to create the necessary effect. If you want to have something clever on your site to impress visitors, keep it to one or two things. Too much activity is off-putting. This means that endless flashing lights, flying letters and words, rotating banners and text hopping all over the place is really not a good idea. Remember the KISS principle.
• Colours make sense and are easy on the eye. Certain colours simply do not work well on the web, especially in combination. Try to stick to a couple of colours that you combine wisely to create a harmonious effect. This doesn’t mean you can’t be bold, just that you need to be bold in a way that doesn’t send the mind into instant revolt.
• Text should be the right colour and size for easy readability. Pale blue text on a white background, for example, is not a good idea. Text that is either too small or too large, will merely be annoying. Keep it clear and easy on the eyes.
• Front page. Having a “cool” front page that does nothing but display your name and a sign saying enter may seem great to you … it may even seem great to your visitors the first time around … but it can also be hugely irritating. Even more so if they have just waited 5 minutes for it to load. Never forget that people come to your site looking for information. The longer it takes them to get there, the more frustrated they will become and the more likely they will be to go somewhere else. When it comes to these splash pages, also known as portals or front doors, you are dealing with a number of issues: look, speed, functionality. Think carefully about using them.
• Graphic effects. We’ve already dealt with this and the importance of keeping it to a minimum, but it probably bears repeating again. If you do have a lot of special effects and graphics that you simply HAVE to use, try to spread these through your site to mimimise visual overload and avoid slow loading times.
• Html headings should be used with care. If you use it for nothing else, use CSS for your headings so that you can manipulate text sizes, boldness and underlining. Straight html headings come up huge and become a problem if you have a few of them on a page. Headings need to get attention, not blow people

Checklist Is your site easy and pleasant on the eye; not overcrowded; not too empty; text is clear and legible; not too busy; colours and graphics work well together; nothing overpowering.

Feel
The feel of your site is affected by numerous factors, including all the items dealt with above. To achieve a good feel, you need to look at how you combine text, graphics, effects, colour, layout, placement of links and speed. Some sites take the white space concept too far and end up with pages that feel cold and empty, as if the person or business behind the site really has nothing to offer. Others make it so crowded that it feels disconcerting. With some, the placement of information and links is so poorly done that the site feels clumsy and unpleasant to navigate. There are many sites where the colours and layout say “welcome” and are uplifting, while others practically shout at you to go away. What does yours say?

It is also important to remember that what may work extremely well in print, does not always translate well onto a screen, especially considering that you do not have absolute control over how your site will be seen. Different resolutions, browsers and PC’s will see your offering differently. This aspect is dealt with further in the sections below, but for now, the important thing is that the feel is the third impression that visitors will gain from your site and it is all about achieving balance.

Checklist Does your site have the right feel, making it welcoming and a pleasure to visit and use.

Information
Once your visitors have arrived and absorbed the look and feel of your site, the next thing they are going to notice is the actual content. If they were looking for graphics, did they find good graphics? If they are looking for information, did they find good information on the subject they expected? There are a few issues involved here. The one is that your site actually serves a purpose. Visitors must leave with what they came for … at the very least with more than they had when they arrived and all the essential information about your business.

Do they now know what you do, how you do it and how to get hold of you? This is the critical test for even the most basic site. In terms of having their expectations met, this is not entirely influenced by you because expectations are very personal. However, where I have seen some sites set themselves up for failure in terms of visitor disappointment, is in the realms of META tags and even spamming. Yes you want visitors. Yes you want everyone out there to find you, but tricking them is not the way to make a good impression, especially if you are running a serious business that is here for the long haul. Optimise your site, but not at the expense of your integrity.

Checklist Look at your site. Does it give valuable information? Do you have sufficient tags, links and content that relate only to your genuine offering?

Functionality
After reading your first page, visitors now want to browse further if the site seems to be of interest. Perhaps they have specific information that they are looking for. The question is, how easy have you made it for them to find it … or have you simply set them up for frustration and annoyance?

The web has been around for a while now and as it has evolved, so certain basic “formats” have emerged. While it is great to be different and memorable, you preferably want to be remembered for the right reasons, not because the experience was so awful. There are certain expectations that visitors have of all sites. One of these is that they can find their way around.

Just yesterday I received a promotional email from a fairly well-known internet company. In it, they were inviting me to sign up for a special offer. When I went to the site, I ended up having to click on every single link in order to find the page that had the further information. Needless to say, I never signed up, even though I had just spent about 20 minutes trying to find the information. The service they were offering in the email sounded great, but they lost all credibility once I could not logically find my way around.

Another marvellous experience that I have frequently had is businesses sending me emails about products or services that were of interest. I would go to the site, easily find the related link …. only to get an error message because the link was broken. Then of course there is the site that hides its information behind obscurely named links or behind a well-named link that seems to have no relation to the information whatsoever. For example, you’re looking for a physical address and this has been stuck behind the “products” link or a link called “landing pad”.

So … in assessing functionality, consider the following:

Checklist Does your site layout make it easy to logically find information; do links render the expected information, do all the links work and does the site flow.

Accessibility
This deals with a number of issues, all related to how easy it is to find your site and, once found, to use it. That may seem as if I am saying the same thing as I did above, but this is coming from a slighly different angle. At this point we are not concerned so much with links as we are with the question of whether ALL users can access your site and gain a valid experience from it. Let’s take these one at a time.

Are people finding you? You can have the best site on the web, but if nobody finds you, you’re wasting your time and money. If you are not getting any enquiries off the web, it normally comes down to a combination of factors: inadequate META tags, missing titles on your pages, poor first page content, your site not being on the various directories and search engines, not being linked to from any other sites. Any one of these on their own can hurt you. Together they are suicide. It doesn’t stop with being found by search engines either. In the world of the web, ranking is god. If you are coming up in the results at number 2765, or perhaps as high as number 70, you do not even feature. Unless you appear within the first three pages, chances are nobody will ever get to see you.

One of the best ways to test this is to go into the search engines yourself and type in the keywords that you think people would use when trying to find your kind of business, product or service. Can’t find yourself? – Nor can anyone else. This is where optimisation comes into the equation and there are many companies who offer to do optimisation and/or submission for a small fee. Some are outstanding. Some will cause enormous damage that could actually preclude you from ever being listed by various engines or directories.

So what must you do? First of all, test your site for an accurate picture. Next, be prepared to spend a good amount of time tweaking your META tags and the site itself, setting up cross-linking and submitting to all the major and relevant directories ….. sometimes over and over again. – Not because they need resubmission once listed, but because it sometimes takes months of periodic submission to be accepted. Having a good site to begin with and following submission guidelines carefully can prevent this type of problem, but it is time consuming none-the-less.

An important note here is that you no longer NEED to submit to search engines. They will find you on their own.

Now for the next question. Does everyone who visits get to see and use your site? This may seem to be a rather daft question, but only if you are using a later model PC and a later version of Internet Explorer. Many people are still using older computers and older browsers and for them, your site could be a dismal failure. Likewise, visitors using some of the different browsers like Netscape, Firefox, Opera, etc. will often see your site a little differently to Internet Explorer users. If the site is not tested on these browsers, it could actually render very badly for those visitors.

Ask yourself these questions:
Has your site been tested on various versions of various browsers?
Do you have frames and, if you do, do your frames also accomodate people who don’t have the capacity to see them?
Do you have alt tags on your graphics so that people without graphic capabilities can still make sense of your site?
Do you use java or javascript? If you do, to what extent?
Can people without java or javascript still fully experience your site?
Is there anything in your site’s coding that works in only one type or version of browser? This is one of the most common errors made by even some of the most highly regarded web designers and developers. They sit down with the latest Internet Explorer and as long as their coding works there, they consider it successful. The moment someone comes along with a lower version of IE, Netscape or one of the other lesser used browsers, the site looks like it’s been hacked by a practical joker. Is that what you want your visitors to experience?

Checklist: Coding is cross-browser friendly; if you have used frames, java, javascript, style sheets, Dhtml or any browser-specific coding, your site is not dependent upon them and, where it is, you have provided an alternative for people who are not enabled for those; images and graphics have alt tags for non-graphic browsers; all pages have optimised titles; front pages have valid information and content; META tags have been optimised; effective submissions to directories; adequate cross-linking.

Stickability
Just like the spider’s web, without the glue, you’ll never catch a thing. Even if you are at the top of every search engine result, it will serve little purpose if visitors come to your site and immediately leave. The point is to get them there, then keep them there until they have done what you want them to do, whether this is to read, to buy, to contact you. Whatever the objective of your site, you want it realised.

Once again this is no stand-alone issue, but is influenced by a number of things like, look, feel, content and issues that “grab” attention and encourage visitors to go further into the site.

Checklist Does your site grab interest and provoke visitors to come in deeper?

Consistency
Finally, is your site online for at least 99.5% of the time, does it look and perform the same with every visit and do you have a theme that flows throughout so that the pages very obviously tie together.

The first issue relates to your choice of host and this is where the cheapest is not always the best choice. Once again, uptime is something that needs to be tested on an ongoing basis, at all times of day and night, in order to gain an accurate picture.

When it comes to consistent performance, the question here is how stable is your site. Generally, the simpler the coding, the more stable your site will be. This does not necessarily mean that complex coding will cause a wobbly site, merely that it is less likely with less complexity. In addition, even stable sites sometimes catch a wobble and the key is constant monitoring to ensure that no graphics have suddenly disappeared, formatting has not for some obscure reason suddenly changed and your site is not being bombarded with error messages.

Lastly, keep your site branded. In other words, choose an identity that you want to project and then stick with it, just as you would with any marketing tool.

Checklist Uptime is at least 99.5%; site is stable, pages flow.

That is often a question for business owners, but is becoming a comon question for just about everyone now-a-days.

Obviously it depends upon the type of event or product or service or whatever it may be that you are considering a website for and what the business or individual is trying to achieve.  A well designed web site can be an amazing tool for communicating with customers and suppliers, family and friends.  It’s a showcase of whatever the “it” is that you want to show off.

It all depends on who your target audience is and what you want to accomplish.  There’s websites for all kinds of events and businesses: weddings, parties, retirement events, holidays, product lines, house keeping, teaching, voicing opinions, pushing politics, selling “it” and increasing credibility…the proverbial list goes on.

For businesses, I’d say that the better question for you is “How much should I budget for online marketing this quarter?”  Companies are getting websites for individual products now, not just their business.  Case in point, try to find how many websites Doritos owns.  First page of Google shows at least 5.

If you don’t have a website or two, you’re missing one of the most effective and low-cost pieces to any marketing arsenal.

I guess my point is that if you have anything you want to communicate in a centralized location that can be showcased on it’s own maybe the better question is “Why not get a website?”  After all, everybody’s doing it.

Your web site is like a flight of stairs into your business. Once you’ve got prospects to your home page – your online front door – you want to move them to action. If you miss a step or two, prospects will fall and won’t make it in the door to your business. If you put the last step first and your first step last, prospects won’t find the steps you want them to take.

There is a hierarchy of information and elements you need to present to prospects to make it easy for them to become customers and clients. This is not what most small business owners provide on their web sites. Most sites lead with a boring description of services and credentials. This tends to push prospects away.

Before you build your web site or start to fix a site that isn’t attracting as many clients as you’d like, take a minute to clarify the objectives of your site. Marketing objectives for web sites for most independent professionals and small business owners should be:

a. Lead Generation - Build your list of qualified prospects who are interested in your products and services but not quite ready to make a purchase. First time visitors to the site need to be able to quickly identity if they are in the right place and determine whether you can help them. Make it easy for prospects to qualify themselves.
b. Establish Credibility- If people found your site by searching the web, you have a lot of work to do to prove that you can help them and deliver on what the site promises.
c. Sell Your Products and Services – Of course you will want to include information about your products and services, but if you rush this step, you’ll lose prospects before you’ve created the context that will move them to a purchase.

Now that you know what you want your web site to do, define the key elements that should be on your home page. Put these in the correct sequence and more prospects will do what you want. You’ll generate more leads and more sales. Here’s how.

1. Feature Your Marketing Message

At the top of your home page include a one sentence marketing message that describes what you actually do and the problems you solve. For example, “Helping service professionals and small business owners attract more clients” or “Helping you create the ultimate personalized trip to Britain”.

2. Collect Leads

Place the sign-up for your free newsletter, ebook, or catalogue at the top of your web page. The right hand top corner is the optimal position. Above the sign-up form don’t just say “Enter your email here for complimentary information”. Make an offer, one that will motivate your prospects to give you their contact information. For example, “Sign Up for Britain’s best travel secrets.” As an incentive on my site I offer a free marketing guide to motivate people to subscribe to my newsletter, with the result that 12-15% of site visitors sign up for my ezine.

3. Use Qualifying Questions

Don’t start with a description of your services or products. Below your marketing message, lead with qualifying questions, that will help prospects understand the problems you solve, engage your visitors’ attention and create a perception of need.

For example, if you sell ergonomic chairs, you could ask, “Does your back ache at the end of a day at your desk?” Or if you sell customized travel services to Britain you could ask, “Are you interested in a customized, hassle f*ree va*cation in the British Isles?”

4. Build Credibility

One-way to do this is to include testimonials from satisfied clients. People will read your marketing copy with a grain – or a whole shaker – of salt. When people read what others say about the amazing results you achieve, they are much more likely to believe your claims. Limit your testimonials to ones that are easy to believe, even if you did help someone make ten million dollars.

The second part of establishing your credibility is to demonstrate the value of your expertise by providing prospects with helpful ideas. If you’re in the computer repair and maintenance business you might include tips on identifying software conflicts and keeping computers from crashing.

People like to do business with people they know and trust so use your site to bring your company and personality to life. Include links to your articles, case studies and /or product demonstrations. Add a photo of yourself or your employees to personalize your site and move prospects to thinking of you as a person.

5. Show Prospects The Results You Are Selling

Include thumbnails of products and services people can click on in a side navigation bar on most of your site’s pages. Whatever you sell make sure to feature both visual and verbal testimonials along with information and images of your products and services.

On your individual service or product pages provide examples of clients and customers using your services or products. For ebooks, include tables of contents and sample chapters. If you sell log homes, include pictures of happy customers in their homes. If you sell information, feature client testimonials.

6. Tell Prospects What To Do

If you want people to sign up for your newsletter, tell them to. To get people to read the articles on your site, tell them to. To increase the number of people who view the pages describing your products and services, include thumbnail images of your products and tell them to click on the image for further information. If there is a particular sequence of steps you want prospects to take, tell them what they are.

7. Make It Easy For Prospects

Place your contact information, including email address and phone number in an obvious location on every page, particularly the home page. Include a link to a contact form or place it at the bottom of your home page, or both.

In your form, ask a few key questions to help prospects clarify what it is they want to achieve and get their phone number so you can follow up. Their responses will help you prioritize who to contact and help you focus on your most profitable prospects.

Show prospects who are ready to engage your services or buy your products how to do so. Coaches will want to include a coaching inquiry form. People who sell greeting cards, should include a quick link to so people can place their orders.

Use the blueprint above to construct a web site that sells. Build steps that will lead prospects into your web site and motivate them to give you their name, email address and phone number or to contact you about your services or to buy your products. Build steps that will move them from prospects to clients and customers.