Website Owner's Manual

Copyright

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Dedication

To my father, who inspired me to write a book; and to my son, who may one day write one of his own.

Brief Table of Contents

Copyright

Brief Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About this Book

Author Online

About the Author

Chapter 1. The secret to a successful website

Chapter 2. Stress-free planning

Chapter 3. The perfect team

Chapter 4. Differences over design

Chapter 5. Creating killer content

Chapter 6. User-centric design

Chapter 7. Ensuring access for all

Chapter 8. Taking control

Chapter 9. Decoding technobabble

Chapter 10. Driving traffic

Chapter 11. Engaging your visitors

Chapter 12. Planning for the future

Index

Table of Contents

Copyright

Brief Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About this Book

Author Online

About the Author

Chapter 1. The secret to a successful website

Discover your missing manual

Battling information overload

Seeing the bigger picture

Having a need to know mentality

Principle 1. Balance conflicting priorities

Making your site easy to use

Providing access for all

Producing aesthetic appeal

Facilitating development

Creating killer content

Focusing on objectives

Principle 2. Define your role

Having a vision

Being an advocate

Evangelizing your site

Managing your content

Coordinating your projects

Resolving disagreements

Principle 3. Plan for the future

Evaluating your objectives

Refining your website

Promoting your site

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 2. Stress-free planning

Keep your planning lightweight

Don’t plan in a bubble

Understanding the context of your web project

Gaining context through consultation

Measure success

Avoiding unrealistic goals

Avoiding the blame game

Know your site

Qualitative feedback

Quantitative analysis

Check out the competition

Reviewing your competition

Testing your competition

Picture your users

Prioritizing your users

Creating personas

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 3. The perfect team

Choose when to outsource

Clearly define your project

Write an effective brief

Providing context

Clearly stating your requirements

Defining your deliverables

Learning about the supplier

Avoid disasters

Never request speculative design

Avoid writing a wish list

Select the perfect team

Narrowing the field

Reading between the lines

Making the final selection

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Chapter 4. Differences over design

Too many cooks: subjective design

Focusing on your target audience

Testing your design

Avoiding design by committee

Maintaining a broad overview

The fight for home-page real estate

Understanding the changing role of the home page

Rushing into home-page design

Demonstrating the importance of simplicity

Corporate branding

Creating a personality for your brand

Going from print to the web

The challenges of layout

Grappling with resolution

Understanding the fold

Constraining page width

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 5. Creating killer content

Learn the importance of context

Don’t make users read online

Providing context through links

Reducing the desire to leave

Reduce or remove

Learning where to prune

Understanding how to prune

User-centric structure

Structuring through card sorting

Going with the flow

Common mistakes in structuring sites

Scannable and approachable

Making your content engaging

Making it clear

Making it scannable

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 6. User-centric design

The profit and loss of usability

Understanding perceived losses from user testing

Understanding the real profit of user testing

Bargain-basement usability

Testing a little but often

Watching out for decreasing returns

Recruiting loosely

Run an effective test session

Being prepared

Understanding the role of facilitator

Working from a script

Fix the problems

Filtering out background noise

Prioritizing and reporting

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 7. Ensuring access for all

Identify the cowboys

Learning from history

Understanding the consequences of poor code

Learning a better way to build websites

A matter of style

Improving printing

Capturing the emerging market

Responding quickly to change

Never turn away users (or Google)

Handling the expense of accessibility

Achieving increased traffic with minimum effort

Exceed your legal obligations

Create an accessibility policy

Establishing your long-term accessibility goal

Having a roadmap for overcoming common problems

Testing accessibility

Maintaining accessibility

Dealing with complaints

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 8. Taking control

The pros and cons of a CMS

The benefits of a CMS

The drawbacks of a CMS

Establish your requirements

Core functionality

The editor

Ability to manage assets

Search

Customization

User interaction

Roles and permissions

Versioning

Multiple-site support

Multilingual support

Examine your options

Using an off-the-shelf CMS vs. a custom-built CMS

Choosing a type of CMS

Make your selection

Licensing

The development team

Security

Accessibility and code quality

Documentation and training

Support

Community

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 9. Decoding technobabble

Understand the web

Moving data from the web to your desktop

Understanding how web pages are built

Understanding Web 2.0, AJAX, and other buzzwords

Grapple with the browser

Different browsers, different bugs

Plug-in problems

Host your site

Assessing server requirements

Finding the right hosting package

Assessing hosting companies

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 10. Driving traffic

Become number 1 on Google

Avoiding being blacklisted

Improving your search-engine ranking

Understanding the problem with search engines

Using pay-per-click advertising

Go beyond the search engine

Offline promotion

Targeting your audience

Viral marketing

Measure success

Monitoring marketing

Finding and resolving problems

Identifying popular content

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 11. Engaging your visitors

The power of community

Improving your offering

Changing brand perception

Promoting your site

Reducing your costs

The right tool for the job

Using broadcast tools

Using feedback tools

Using interactive tools

Successful communication

Knowing when to communicate

Understanding how to communicate

Foster a community

Controlling growth

Feeding the community

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Chapter 12. Planning for the future

A broken model

A broken relationship

Target emerging trends

Creating a richer experience

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Looking beyond your website

Target emerging platforms

Looking beyond the PC

Moving to the desktop

Stay informed

Next actions

Action 1

Action 2

Action 3

Index

Foreword

In all of human history, there has never been a more exciting time to be alive than right now. I believe that we’re on the cusp of a revolution that is more important and powerful than anything the world has ever seen.

Ubiquitous broadband, advanced browsers, cheap computing, and trust in online payments now allow us to launch our ideas cheaply, quickly, and effectively to a global audience.

On top of all that is the augmenting power of online social networks. We’ve witnessed the power of Facebook and Twitter to increase traffic to sites in unprecedented ways. These new tools are giving Google a run for its money in becoming the primary referral source for all websites. Who would’ve imagined?

The simple fact that you’re reading this book means you’re part of a very fortunate group of people who are uniquely placed to take advantage of this revolution. You’re rich enough to own a computer. You’re smart enough to understand HTML. You’re lucky enough to be in your prime at this moment in history. If anyone has the opportunity to kick some serious ass and change the world, it’s you.

The Internet is going to change the course of human history, and you’ll be leading that charge. It’s simply mind blowing.

Unfortunately, however, we still have a long way to go. It’s hard to make an amazing website. For every great site, 99 other sites fail abysmally in their goals. There are a hundred different ways to fail with a website: poor copy, stale content, unintuitive user interfaces, bad color choices, lack of direction, inferior design, and more.

Wouldn’t it be great if a straightforward manual was available for website owners? Guess what? You’re holding it!

I’m glad that Paul has taken the time to compile his 10 years of experience in designing and building websites into this valuable book. It’s the smartest money you’ve spent this year, and I guarantee you that it will revolutionize the way you approach your website.

See you in the history books!

RYAN CARSON

FOUNDER, CARSONIFIED.COM

Preface

Sometimes I feel like Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day, doomed to endlessly repeat the same day. I find myself having the same conversations with website owners over and over again and encountering the same frustrating stories.

I’ve been designing websites since 1994 and have worked with hundreds of website owners. The majority of these clients share a similar story. They are marketers, project managers, business owners, and IT specialists who have for one reason or another found themselves responsible for their organization’s website. They often have little or no experience with the web and so turn to an outside agency or freelancer for help.

Unfortunately, their experience of working with these contractors is often far from satisfactory. They’re made to feel stupid, are overwhelmed with technobabble, and are asked to make significant decisions about their web strategy with next to no information. By the time I meet them, they’re usually demoralized and cynical.

I wrote this book in an attempt to stop this cycle of failure. In many ways, it’s a continuation of the work I’ve been doing for some time.

I enable website owners to take control of their sites. I do this by helping them understand their role, the key ingredients of a successful website, and how to work effectively with web designers.

Initially, I did this solely on a one-to-one basis. As clients came to work with my web-design agency (Headscape), I attempted to guide them through the process, educating them on the way. But it didn’t take me long to realize that this approach had a limited reach.

In an attempt to reach a wider audience, I began blogging and podcasting on the subject. I quickly discovered that website owners weren’t the only people interested in my ideas. Web designers also started to listen to my show and read my blog. They were keen to help their clients gain a better understanding of running a successful website. As interest in the blog and podcast grew, it led to speaking engagements and finally to this book.

For me, this book is the culmination of my attempt to better equip website owners. It brings together my own thoughts and the advice of others much cleverer than myself.

Acknowledgments

I never considered writing a book or thought I’d have the opportunity to do so. It has been possible only because of support from many people. As you can imagine, I’m keen to thank them.

I’d like to particularly thank my father, who has always been my role model and inspiration. A talented wildlife photographer and author, he has written a number of books despite the fact that he failed English at school. His example made me realize that I was capable of writing a book, too. This belief was reinforced by the endless love and support of my mother, who, defying all logic and reason, believed me capable of anything.

Of course, just because I had the ability to write a book didn’t mean I had the opportunity. Thanks for that opportunity belongs both to Manning for agreeing to take on this book and to my co-founders of Headscape, Marcus Lillington and Chris Scott. To all concerned, I apologize that the writing of this book took so much longer than expected!

In many ways, this book has been a group effort born out of years of discussion and debate with the Boagworld community. Without the input of these talented designers, developers, and website owners, this book would be much reduced. Although this community’s members are too numerous to mention individually, I’d like to thank Ryan Taylor, Anna Debenham, and Paul Stanton, who have helped keep the site and podcast going when I was distracted by writing.

I also appreciate the help of Patrick Lauke, who was kind enough to be my technical editor. Without his scrutiny, I would have shown my ignorance on a number of occasions.

Special thanks to Ryan Carson for writing the foreword and to the following reviewers who read the manuscript at various stages in its development and provided valuable feedback: Aleksey Nudelman, Andy Yeates, Matthew Curry, Vincent Stoneking, Robert Hanson, Rob Allen, Sheldon Kotyk, Andrew Grothe, Robert Wenner, Gary Marshall, Chris Kelly, Radhakrishna M.V., Amos Bannister, Muhammad Saleem, Scott Stanlick, and Curt Christianson.

Finally, I could not end without thanking Catherine, my wife. She is my world, and I love her more than life itself. Without a doubt, this book would never have been written if it wasn’t for her love, support, and most of all patience.

About this Book

Welcome to the Website Owner’s Manual! If you’ve picked up this book, you probably run a website and want advice about how to make it more successful.

There is certainly no shortage of advice available, in the form of books, conferences, blogs, podcasts, magazines, and tutorials. These offer an unbelievable amount of detail; for example, entire books dedicated to designing website forms and blogs only look at online typography. The problem is not too little advice but too much!

Even if you had endless time to review all this information, with so many sources and such depth available, it’s impossible to know where to begin. This book endeavors to overcome this problem.

The Website Owner’s Manual provides an overview of running a successful website. It focuses on the issues you need to know and teaches you how to work with experts for everything else.

It covers your own role as website owner and looks at strategic issues such as business objectives, target audiences, and success criteria. It goes on to teach you how to work with web designers, content providers, and technical developers. It also provides a basic understanding of design, usability, best practices, content creation, and online marketing.

In short, it is a manual for website owners.

Who should read this book?

As the title suggests, this book is primarily for website owners. But who are website owners? Chances are you don’t describe yourself as one, but this book is probably still for you.

A website owner is anyone who is responsible for their organization’s website. That doesn’t mean you have to be a web expert. There are few full-time, highly qualified website owners. Most are marketers, project managers, IT professionals, or business owners who have either been given the job of running a website or have volunteered because nobody else would.

Often, the website is just one more responsibility alongside your official job description. Most website owners lack any training in the role and have little experience managing websites.

If that sounds like you, then this book is the answer. I wrote it to tell you all you need to know about running a successful website.

But this book also has a lot to offer web professionals. If you’re an experienced website manager, this book will serve as a useful checklist when you’re initiating new projects and will bring you up to date with current best practices.

If you’re a web designer or developer working with clients or management, this book will provide you with valuable insights into effective communication and how to guide a client through the process of building a website.

Roadmap

Website Owner’s Manual guides you through the various stages of planning, building, and running a website. The principles laid out in this book apply whether you’re building a website for the first time, relaunching an existing site, or adding functionality.

Each chapter deals with a different aspect of web design:

Chapter 1 defines the role of a website owner. It explains that this role is the key to a successful website and examines some the challenges involved.

Chapter 2 addresses the importance of planning. In particular, it tackles understanding your users, learning from the competition, and analyzing your existing site. It also asks, How will you judge your project a success?

Chapter 3 focuses on recruiting the team you need to build your website and ensuring that you clearly communicate with that team.

Chapter 4 looks at the contentious issue of design. It provides advice about working with a designer and how to select a final design less subjectively. It also explains some basic design principles and tackles the thorny subject of the home page.

Chapter 5 deals with the biggest challenge facing most website owners: content. It looks at writing user-friendly content, organizing that content, and understanding the importance of context.

Chapter 6 is about making your site more user friendly. It presents a business case for usability testing and tells you how to test your own site at minimal expense.

Chapter 7 goes on to address best practices in web design. These include accessibility for both users and search engines, as well as the need to separate content from design.

Chapter 8 tells you all you need to know about selecting a content-management system. It also offers a word of warning about seeing such systems as silver bullets.

Chapter 9 explains the fundamentals about how the web works and helps decode the technobabble used by many web designers.

Chapter 10 looks at driving traffic to your website through the use of search engines and other marketing methods. It goes on to demonstrate how you can monitor these strategies.

Chapter 11 explains how a successful website facilitates a conversation between users and the site owner. It suggests practical ways to engage with users and nurture community.

Chapter 12 concludes the book by looking to the future. It stresses the need for continual development and focuses on emerging trends.

Author Online

The purchase of the Website Owners Manual includes free access to a private forum run by Manning Publications where you can make comments about the book, ask technical questions, and receive help from the authors and other users. You can access and subscribe to the forum at http://www.manning.com/WebsiteOwnersManual. This page provides information about how to get on the forum after you register, the kind of help that’s available, and the rules of conduct in the forum.

Manning’s commitment to readers is to provide a venue where a meaningful dialogue between individual readers and between readers and the author can take place. It isn’t a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of the author, whose contributions to the book’s forum remain voluntary (and unpaid). We suggest you try asking the author some challenging questions, lest his interest stray!

The Author Online forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s website as long as the book is in print.

In addition to the Author Online forum available on Manning’s website, you may also wish to visit the author’s personal site at http://boagworld.com. From here, you can

Access a wealth of additional articles about running a successful website.

Participate in a vibrant community made up of designers, developers, and website owners.

Subscribe to the author’s award-winning podcast, which provides valuable insights into running a website.

Follow the author’s hints and tips on website management through social networks such as Twitter.

The site is designed to keep any website owner up to date with the latest innovations and best practices.

About the Author

Paul Boag is a website strategist and a director at Headscape, a web-design agency based in the south of England. He started designing websites while working for IBM back in 1994. This was in the days when designing for the web was considerably easier. Since then, he has ridden the dot-com bubble and co-founded his own web-design agency.

Today, he can be found advising clients on how to better utilize the web, speaking around the world, and hosting the award-winning Boagworld web-design podcast. He also writes for his own blog and numerous other publications.

At the time of writing, he is addicted to Twitter. It will pass.

Chapter 1. The secret to a successful website

In this chapter

Discover your missing manual

Battling information overload

Seeing the bigger picture

Having a need to know mentality

Principle 1. Balance conflicting priorities

Making your site easy to use

Providing access for all

Producing aesthetic appeal

Facilitating development

Creating killer content

Focusing on objectives

Principle 2. Define your role

Having a vision

Establish your vision

Know your roadmap

Being an advocate

Evangelizing your site

Managing your content

Populating initial content

Keeping content fresh

Ensuring a consistent message and tone

Coordinating your projects

Resolving disagreements

Principle 3. Plan for the future

Evaluating your objectives

Refining your website

Promoting your site

Here’s the million-dollar question:

What is the secret to a successful website?

I’m not foolish enough to suggest a single answer. But in my decade of working on client websites, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern: the sites that succeed are those that have a well-informed, passionate website owner at the helm. No single thing makes a site successful, but a good website owner puts into place the elements that give a site a fighting chance.

The question should be not What is the secret to a successful website? but How do I become a great website owner?

No definitive manual exists that explains how to do the job.

What does it mean to be a website owner, and how can you do it successfully?

Discover your missing manual

The lack of a manual defining the role of website owner is only part of the problem. There is also a lack of training specific to being a website owner. Courses are available for web designers and developers, so it seems natural that website owners will be next. Meanwhile, this book endeavors to be your missing manual.

This book isn’t the only available resource on being a website owner. Knowing how to handle the plethora of information available both in print and on the web is crucial to succeeding in your role.

Battling information overload

When it comes to learning how to run a successful website, the problem of information overload is particularly acute. Millions of web pages are dedicated to every conceivable aspect of website management, from usability testing to search-engine placement.

The offline world is no better. Hundreds of books cover the various facets of web design. Add to these conferences, magazines, seminars, and workshops, and it become impossible to identify what you need to know.

With so much information available from books, websites, magazines, conferences, and even podcasts, there is simply too much to learn.

The problem is made worse because sources can often be out of date due to the rapid development of the web. This leaves you confused about current best practice. With so many evolving and often conflicting sources, how can you begin to know what is important?

Seeing the bigger picture

A good starting point is to recognize that a website owner is a generalist rather than a specialist. Think of yourself as a family doctor rather than a brain surgeon.

If you focus on the wrong thing, it’s easier