Good Website Design - by Dean Cobussen

Back-link, don't schmuck-link!

2011-09-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

Lately i am asked alot by customers how they can improve their search results in Google. Many have done their own research and found ways to try to improve this but, like most people in today's world, they want short cuts. (We are not talking about Adwords here, because paying for placement is fair enough and actually takes some effort.)

There are companies promising all sorts of things for improving your Google search results. Statements like "first page ranking for $99!", "get thousands more visits to your site!", "how to increase your visits and make more money now!" etc etc. These adverts promise the world and have no foundation.

Recently a 'new' website service has reared its head on the scene promising similar things with a slight twist. SocialMonkee.com - this site is what the owner calls a 'Back-link Builder'. Backlinks are inbound links to your website, which increase your online relationships. It is one of the main ways to improve search rankings for your website. Building up credible back-links requires authentic relationships with other businesses by using referral links relating to service or supply and often in the same or similar market. Social Monkee does this for you without you needing to know anyone! It has its own social bookmarking sites, which it generates links from and to your site. Whether these sites have any real relevance to the market is not in the equation. I can't see Google tolerating this for long as it goes against what Google is trying to achieve, even if Google's criteria is met legally. It's cheating the system whichever way you look at it.

Other Backlink builders do similar, promising posts on blogs and forum sites with links back to your website. They say things like " these are permanent links and will never be removed.." which is total rubbish. Lots of forums and blogs don't let you post links.. or they remove them if they use it as a back-link post. If they didn't all blog owners would get is bogus comments and false posts from web bots or people fudging the system.

Hiding content, using unrelated back-links and making bogus posts with your company web address will only get you black listed or give you a bad reputation. Even if you can rise to the top of searches in some quick way, when viewers arrive, the quality content will not be there and so they will not stay or use you. Eventually viewers will work out your site is false in its claims.

To be found well, write for your audience. Use words they use online and in your market. Give your customers what they want and not want you want to give them. Relate your website to other websites in the market with reciprocal linking and post a regular concise blog to add value.

Ever heard the saying.. "nothing worth having comes easy" ?.. same online.

5 Rules to a Successful Website

2011-07-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

1. Make it convenient

Convenience rules our world. It's the one thing that is more important than "cost". If its easier than something similar, they will use it. So, use a simple domain your audience can remember, provide the address on your email, cards, brochures etc. Provide the address of any online tools in literature or maybe supply an App they can download that specifically sources or delivers information for them. Anything you can do to help your audience easily find you, see you or use your service is seen as being convenient.

2. Provide value

Provide service or information that helps customers speed up what they need to do. You must do this over and above what others provide as a normal service and/or over and above a service you may charge for. Giving customers something that truely helps them for no extra charge gains trust. Self help tools are good but they need to be easy to use, work all the time and stay current.

3. Make it easy

When you're doing 1. and 2. well, don't ruin it by asking customers to login or something equally annoying. Equally, make your site easy to use by doing pre-live user testing. This does not need to be expensive or long winded - ask your neighbour, parents or kids to carry out predefined tasks that you have determined your customers might do on your website. Make it easier than your competitors, help customers do what they want to do quickly and they will talk about you as a market leader. Make your website a pleasurable self-help experience.

4. Don't copy competitors

Remember what your teacher used to tell you about copying someone else in a test? The person you choose to copy could be wrong. Just because most other competitors in your market do similar things online, it does not mean they are right. Unlike Offline, Online is still a mystery to many companies so they tend to copy principles used elsewhere. These date fast and were often never right anyway. In my experience, many companies online are not doing things correctly for their audience. Don't be one of these!

5. Do the basics - do not experiment

If you're a manager charged with heading a website project, any success you might achieve online will be largely to do with your willingness to do or help with what it is your customers need to do. Business websites are 99% destinational - they are tools that support and supplement your business offering offline. Websites are not experimental projects where you can afford to waste money on designs to please your boss or yourself. Find the truth, ask your audience and follow these principles. And remember, good things take time, make small tweaks to your site every few weeks and measure the results and re-tweak. This is how those good sites became so nice to use.

"Domain Names" affect your Google results!

2011-06-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

The criteria that Google uses is not exactly known and it is a bit of a science to understand what it looks for in websites. Google constantly changes as the web evolves. Its whole existence is based on giving searchers the best possible true result. If it didn't, it would go out of business. So Google is constantly looking at new ways to tell if websites are authentic in their offerings. Domain names are just one piece of puzzle, but an interesting one at that.

Domain Age:

Alot of website owners may not be aware that the age of a domain name affects the website ranking - the older the better. And the longer you have it registered for, the better still. It means you intend on sticking around and Google likes this.

Multiple Domains:

Using multiple domains names are fine so long as your using independent content on each site or page they are associated with. This is because Google dislikes duplicate content. One reason not to have multiple domains names is the maintenance factor. And the fact that each of these can start to build up their own inbound links and so have independent rankings. Be careful when doing this, it is often more prudent to focus on one domain and one site if you do not have the resource to manage it properly.

Keywords in Domains:

There is still a debate on whether using keywords in your domain name helps your search results and to what degree. From what I have done with many customers, it still seems to help a reasonable amount despite what some SEO experts are saying. I have been reading that Yahoo places more emphasis on this than Google. Despite any benefits in terms of rank, my advice is to try using keywords inside your domain name if you can. Worst case is that the keywords you use are simply customer focused and will help customers remember your website more easily.

Registering Domains:

Consider registering a list of domains that are associated with your company and its brands well ahead of time. Register for 5 years or more on your main domains and maybe 1 or 2 years for domains you're unsure about. Make sure the information on the registration of the domain is fully filled out and correct. Some people do not like to give out details, but providing this makes your site more authentic because in theory you have nothing to hide.

Domain sellers:

Avoid companies you have never heard of who target you out of the blue for a domain name you might have or could buy. Ignore the emails completely - I have seen many customers get into a pickle with overseas groups marketing this type of service. Use reputable local services, such as Domainz or Discount Domains.

Domain name length:

Last but not least, domain names are technically an 'address'. They are not a brand although they can be related to or named after one. Keep them as short as possible so viewers can use them in the address field or remember them after reading marketing material. Long domains are painful and only mean viewers will use Google like a directory because the name is too hard to type out.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now!

2011-05-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Network Solutions used to be our email supplier. We used them for Domains too. After a few years I began to need a little help here and there to manage a number domains for customers and email accounts for my team. When I asked for help it took months to have someone call me. Their online account area was awful to use and I complained in email about making this easier so we could help ourselves. When they finally called at 3 am in the morning, they asked "is this a convenient time to talk with you Mr Cobussen about your account issue?" After explaining the time difference between NZ and the US, I asked to have them call me back. This never happened. Not even a message to say they tried.

Without going into details, we have now left Network Solutions. Its been over 2 years. I set up my own account with a specialist domains supplier who has an online help desk. They have a simple website. It's not pretty but it works well. I can type in an issue and within a few minutes I have someone helping me. A great idea that has been around for some time, but few offer this. We now manage our email through an email application with Google where I can easily add or delete accounts and change things without assistance. The exact sort of services our customers need.

Network Solutions continue to this day to send me automated emails reminding me to renew email addresses that no longer exist or function. This means that in all their giganticness, they don't even know I have left. Network Solutions are big, huge in fact, but the principle of good service is still required to keep customers despite a company's size.

If you want to keep your customers coming back you need to add value and "think for them". You also need to be in their minds eye or else they won't think of you when they need help. The web allows us to add lots of simple self-help, self-service tools to aid customers in using our products. They don't have to be flash or look hot to be effective. However, I am constantly observing companies trying to gain new business by either adding in new technologies or revamping their website look before they ask their customers what they need.

"As workers who tend a fig tree are allowed to eat the fruit, so workers who protect their employer's interests will be rewarded."

Our customers are our employers. When you go the extra mile with your customers, they will indirectly find you new business. Start in simple areas. You can reduce overheads while offering value added self-service tools. Try offering something of value up front to gain trust - maybe a drawing file for one of your products or the formula to work something tricky out. The more you offer, the more you will be seen as the industry leader. Do not be fooled into locking online files, withholding information and charging for every small piece of work you do.

Don't charge for software that aids in specifying your products, give it away - flood your market with simple value added service and offerings and your business will grow.

Don't roadblock your customers online!

2011-03-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Fedex are a huge company with some 280,000 employees and a revenue of some 40 billion per year. I do not much like their website.. it is not pretty. It's left aligned and has some 'changing world' global experience thingy they want me to use on their homepage.

But what I love about Fedex is that I can take a tracking number, Google "Fedex", land on their homepage, paste in my number.. with spaces or not.. and hey presto, I have the details of my shipment! They make it easy for me. They don't ask me to login to an account or set one up before I can see the order. As if someone cares about my order and that hiding it will make it any safer. If someone managed to get my tracking number all they would see is my name, the route it took, destination city and parcel size. My name and address are in the phone book, how is this different?

When Fonterra decommissioned their old Intranet in 2008, it had some 15,000 pages. (Actually, they stopped counting at 15,000.) Employees hated it and seldom used it because it was too hard. Today, Fonterra's Intranet is a portal which routes employees to other systems. The Intranet portal itself contains nothing but a directory, main menu, quick-links, news, key company info about the likes of Health & Safety and a poll. It has aprox 40 static content pages. The Intranet homepage automatically comes up on every employee's screen when they start up their computers on the network. No login. This, while a seemingly easy thing to do, is rare.

Previously Fonterra management believed they needed employees to login for 'security' reasons. Once they realised anyone motivated enough could get company information via various other means, and that logging in would not help the uptake of their new Intranet, the problem disappeared. The exposure to employees of the Intranet homepage was prolific and profound. Omitting a simple "Login" made a massive difference to thousands of employees. From subsequent surveys, employees gained a lot more confidence in their company ... and trusted the content they were reading more than ever.

(See below for details)

Do you really want to help your customers (employees are customers too)? Make life easy for them. Remove the "roadblocks" and bring what's most important (to them) to the front!

Fonterra Survey results

First survey : four months after launch

895 responses
49% “definitely” find things more easily on new Milkyway, 42% “sometimes”
90% said not having to log in saves them time - “This is a massive improvement, thanks”
95% said it helps them feel more informed about Fonterra
74% trust the information on Milkyway
77% said they use new Milkyway more than they used old Milkyway

Second survey : ten months after launch (questions changed slightly)

1495 responses – up 67% on first survey!
Can you get most things you need from Milkyway? Answer “no” down from 14% to 5%
99% (up from 95%) said they feel more informed about Fonterra
Do you trust the information on Milkyway is up to date? Answer “no/don’t know” down 16%

Don't 'Jump the Gun' with Technology!

2011-02-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

Microsoft recently released an Office App for iPhone - this is huge because 'Mobile Devices' will steadily continue to take over from 'Desk Top' computers as time moves on. A good move and well timed for Microsoft to keep 'Office' as a desirable tool. However, most mobile apps and the technology have a long way to go to prove their worth to the world rather than just being another human desire. This can be said for Social Media too. Many companies are jumping on the band wagon without knowing exactly where they are going. Right now lots of Social Media and Mobile device additions to businesses are increasing overheads and having no positive impact on sales. The "we need to be seen to be doing the right things" statement seems to be the main reason for many diving into this technology headfirst ... well before the pool is filled!

Earlier this week i had a great giggle over a piece of 'Sobriety Software' used for Social Media. Hmmm.. so someone invented a piece of software that we can run on our own computers to save us from ourselves when we get drunk and want to post silly things on our Facebook profiles!! Hmm, i think we need the same principle applied to a software package for companies using technology they know little about!

We all know that doing business is about relationships, not technology. So why the crazed focus on it? Because it's exciting. It's new, different and it's leading edge. It's also experimental, expensive and dangerous in the wrong hands.

The mechanic that fixes my old BMW does not own a BMW, yet he is an expert. The kitchen maker we used a while back, does not have a kitchen in their building as nice as ours. The builder i last used for our 'minimalist' alterations owns a renovated bungalow that he did not alter himself. We build websites and advise on technology which companies use, yet our website is very simple and employs little of what we use to build some of our customer websites. The same can be said for many manufacturers, product sellers or services. Most do not develop or use those products and services for their own business anywhere like what they do for their clients. Does it make them any less capable? Do you avoid using them because of these things?

While you may feel the need to be 'seen' to be current, take your time and do only what you know you can manage and afford. Mobile Technology is not going anywhere, nor is it essential for looking or acting professionally. Concentrate on fundamental online principles that assist your customers, reduce overheads and help your employees. If you see a possible requirement where it may benefit the company, research it well and look at companies who already use it. Let others 'inject themselves' with experimental technology and watch the results ... it's much smarter and a lot less painful.

Why Customers rule Online

2011-01-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

The old cliche comment, "The customer is always right" has changed in our world today. Suppliers of products and services are not bending over backwards to do whatever customers want. It has a lot to do with culture, perception and the volume of people needing a service or product. I see companies doing what they want online and wondering why it doesn't work.

Today customers are more informed and have more choice than ever before. The Web is the main influence for this change. Collaborative information... a huge resource at their fingertips and all driven by them, "The Customer". So as suppliers this keeps us on our toes. If we want to satisfy our customers we have to be more informed, better supported and we need to add value where they cannot find it easily themselves.

Let's relate retail in a simple way to Web. Try to imagine the longest street in your city with retail shops all the way down it across many blocks and people everywhere. If it's anything like ours, you cannot see far down the street. Even with good eyesight you are lucky to spot specific shop signage a block away. If you're a shop right down the end some 4 or 5 blocks away, how do you get the attention of others at the top of the street to let them know you're there? How do you do this without having signs on other shops, banners or even billboards that again only reach a block or two of walking traffic? Or without using a massive pink balloon high in the air so that everyone in that long shopping street knew you were there? Very few shops use signage in any form further up a street let alone a balloon, it's just not viable.

We go to certain shops for specific reasons. So what does that say about the shops themselves? They are destinational. People go to them because they know they are there or have been directed to them. Most of us are not aware that a lot of where we go, things we know and places we love to eat at, are based on referral. This is how websites are found by 'most' people. Not by surfing or clicking on banner adds.

How do we do we 'get found' online? The same way i would if i asked someone where to find a particular shop when walking down the street! I would use words they understand. The more precise, the better my result from the person i ask. The same process happens online. We either talk to people and they tell us about a good site or a business with a site, or we ask Google. Google is like a person, the more information we give it, the better the result. However, if the websites in question have not used the right customer words with Google, they simply won't be found.

Customers control these words, not website owners. We need to use words THEY understand regardless of whether or not we think it's right. Ask your customers and test your content with them. Make sure your products and services are listed with words THEY know and use online. Display it in a way so they find it easily using menu words they understand. Do not surprise them, do not confuse them and definitely do not try to be clever or else they will leave. Give them what THEY want and your business will thrive.

Online, the customer is still always right!

Contact Forms are great for Business!

2010-12-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

A number of times in the last few months I filled out a website contact form for different reputable companies. Not one responded or sent an auto response. This means I have no idea if they got them or if their online enquiry system is even working.

Recently i moved to another company with our supply of gas because the current company wouldn't answer me about their less than average service. I had no response on two online enquiries and i disliked their ordering system. The website was annoying to visit let alone use. The site markets to you as soon as you arrive with a big purple ‘Flash’ site. It has images of kids and couples, families etc, all flicking past with messages of why i might use gas. I was thinking, "I don't need to be sold, i am already a customer who uses your gas, i just want some help!"

When i finally found the contact form and filled it out, I ended up using too many words in my query. Instead of telling me how many I was using or used, I had to guess how many words to remove before I could send it. I had over 20 minutes of frustration with this form and it worked very badly in my Safari browser. I finally sent it and i have never had a response to this day. We no longer use that service and moved to another supplier that was easier to deal with.

To find out if others had issues with contact forms, I decided to do a random survey with a group of 6 customers. I asked them personally if they trusted using contact forms or if they'd rather use some other way of managing simple requests to companies. All of them, bar one, said they try using contact forms first but almost always needed to follow up with a phone call. And when I asked why they don't call first, they simply said, "phoning means waiting too long". When asked if they trusted the use of contact forms, 5 out of 6 said “NO”. One person had good experiences with contact forms and most of those forms used actually sent an auto-response. When i asked why this person used forms, they simply said, "phoning took too long".

Contact forms are an essential online tool and are seen by viewers as easier than phoning. They are also a basic 'website measurable'. Its very easy to use multiple versions on a website with predefined fields depending on the page or enquiry. You can even have them going to different people and recorded in a database that can be exported. This helps both your customer and your online team.

When i look at the general web stats across most of our customers i can see that "Contact" as a page category is almost always in the top 5 visited by viewers.

So do viewers trust contact forms? For the most part, no. Do we want to use them? Hell yes! Why? Because they are not time dependent. We can send off a request and the company can deal with it in due course. Most companies do not manage their contact form at all. What's even more insulting to customers is that managing a contact form is actually easy to do. Contact forms are hardly new, difficult to set up or test. Companies should have a regular process for checking these and recording the enquiries. Ten minutes a month could save thousands of dollars.

If i am insulted by a service more than once, much like a website that annoys me, i leave. As a customer i will not tolerate basic service failure and i am not alone. There is always another choice.

What is a Digital Strategy?

2010-11-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

There is alot of talk amongst our customers right now about their digital strategy. Lets briefly look at what a digital strategy really is and how we need to think about it to make good decisions for our business online.

When i hear the term "Digital Strategy" i think.. "Why are they worrying about their network? Is there a problem accessing the web or their intranet? Are they buying new data services from Telecom? What has this to do with their websites?"

Using such terminology when talking about Websites or Intranets is just adding to the ever increasing confusion around "Online". A digital strategy is more about IT than the "Content" or how you might meet your audience. It implies the use of technology and does not focus on the all important information. It encompasses the network your company uses, the equipment it runs on aswell as Intranets or websites. Companies have a heavy tendency to worry about the technology first rather than what they are delivering to their audience.

With regards to anything published online, whether it be websites, blogs or social media, your digital strategy should be called a "Web Strategy". A web strategy is more about your customers, the content and how you implement those things they care about, than what you use to do it. There are a variety of technologies today that can do similar things so technology is hardly the place to start. A good web strategy looks at:

1. The processes your company uses to provide what your viewers care about most

2. How you manage this

3. The resource you allocate to it

4. What software system you may use to manage this

Based on the basic steps above, start with the most important and significant tool you have online for your audience. Then use this as your benchmark for other sites you may have. Link these back into the same Content Management System so that all online tools are easily managed from one system and by the same team. This will provide consistency with your content and how its managed.

A web strategy is about understanding and communicating with your audience online. How you do this should be driven by what your customers care most about. If you do not start with this in mind, you will end up where alot of companies are now online - lost, out of pocket and out of date.

Web is about Small Things

2010-10-28T13:25:00.001-07:00

I am amazed how many companies manage to produce complex online solutions that wiz across the screen, open up, blink, sync and flash things in front of viewers, yet they fail to do the basics well. Some of these features work well and often require a plugin or updated browser. All this seems great and pushes the boundary of what we can do online. But what most of these companies fail to understand is that web is about small things... lots of them... done over and over again.

Just the other day, i logged into my bank account online with The National Bank to do what i do every day, make payments, check the account and download files etc. When you first arrive at the log-in screen they present you with a little message at the top of the login, that for some reason slows the screen down to the point that momentarily i have to wait for it to resolve before i can add in my details. Grrr... and this is everytime i arrive, which is alot. What's funny about this now i look at it, is that i could not tell you what this annoying delayed message said until i went online to screen clip it. I have visited this site so many times in the past few months and not once have i read this message. When i finally read it, i realised how silly it was that this message was there causing a delay. All they needed to do was create a simple link like the forgotten password and make logging in a priority. But on this screen, their message is a priority. Yet its value is low compared to logging in.

After logging in, The National Bank in all its wisdom decided to make what should have been a roll-out menu a clickable menu that is different from most other websites in the world. When we click on 'Payments' up pops an elaborate little window menu which has text next to each action. I find this odd because in my mind they have designed the site as if we are all new comers. Yet most of their customers are not. Its likely that over 90% of people using this login and payments option are regular weekly, if not daily, clients.

The National Bank also made changes to their 'Bill Payments' selection tool process. When i used to make payments i could see my whole list of payees from a drop down. Now i am presented with a restricted drop down which makes me have to scroll to find them! Don't get me wrong, i like the new site design and some of its features. Their website allows me to make large payments to payees with a 'auth code' that the site texts to my phone for me to enter and verify that its me. I love this, it makes banking easy and paying my suppliers simple. However, the day to day tasks that i do most often when i use the National Bank online service, makes the service frustrating.

Gerry McGovern taught me that Web is about 'high volume low complexity tasks'. He is completely right.. web is self service, so your website should be simple and do a volume of simple things your customers need to get done on a daily basis. This is where you can add value. Find a phone number, find a brochure, find a specification or maybe an address etc. Don't make life hard for them with little messages, boxes or confusing links. Give your customers what they want. Design your website with your viewers in mind, not your company.

Social Media - is it for your Company?

2010-08-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

I am constantly coming across business managers who talk about wanting to "tap into Social Media tools" like Facebook or Twitter. As a successful business owner and manager of a team, i find this unfocused and time wasting. What's more frightening for me as a web professional with years of experience, is they think they know how it will work and why.

Business success for our company is related heavily to a number of specific things:

1. our relationships

2. how well we manage them and the business

3. the processes in place to govern this

4. the efficiency of our team to know what they need to do

5. delivering what we say we will and on time

6. being easy to work with (under rated and highly effective!)

I think this could be said for any business let alone ours.

None of this comes from the promotion of business within Facebook or Twitter. We could use them but we would also need to support them.. much like a website. They will require alot of attention to maximize any benefit ... and any benefit we do get is likely to be very low. We would also need to assume that we needed more business than we currently get and that we could cope with the increase, which we could not. So why would i do it? In my mind, i need to focus more on the "Farm" i already have so that i keep those i serve. Their experience of our company and its services is where our new business comes from and has done for over a decade.

Most business managers who talk to me about using Social Media for one reason or another, do not have their company website or Intranet running correctly and mostly because there is a lack of resource... thats my observation. The reason they are looking at Social Media is because they want to do some cool stuff. They hear the 'buzz' about Facebook or Twitter and are instantly attracted because .. "everyone is doing this now Dean". Caution Mr Manager - just because some other company has done this or talks about it, it does not mean its actually working for them. In most cases it is not. Do they measure it? What are the inputs and outputs? Do they stack up? I bet 95% of the time, they do not.

There are however exceptions and very clear reasons why at times, Social Media might work. But what employee really cares about being part of a Facebook profile for work? Unless its a social event reason like a fun run... or they get some payment or reward for doing so to help encourage new employees or relationships, why would they? A few maybe. For some weird reason business managers think that the average employee is happy to make efforts and be involved in some company philosophy to promote more business because its simply a good idea. Wake up! Most employees care primarily about two things, getting paid and going home at 5. Reward drives employees. Most managers have this built into their packages, so of course they care more, they are paid more, given more responsibility and reviewed.

Why would i want to follow a company on Twitter? Maybe for company stocks if i am an investor, yes. Or follow a movie star if i was into that. Either way, i would have to be keen.. and want to read these. The company offering this service needs to know its of true value to me and.. wait for it... have allocated the resource! But the average company has no place on Twitter, especially when they do not have the resource to manage it. I tried a number of companies on Twitter recently and almost all of them sent out useless unrelated information. One company had 90 followers and has never sent a tweet!! I struggled to find any company sending out useful information.

Distractions from work cost companies millions of dollars every year and its only getting worse. Most employees use Social Media for personal entertainment, which is understandable. Managers are distracted by the "wow" factor of Social Media tools because they are new and exciting. They also use the word "Potential" when discussing it. Anything in the "Potential" category often means experimental budgets and lots of time or resource. Not good business focus now is it?

So, if your a manager charged with a business, a budget and a website that needs some work, do you waste time with Social Media? Or do you look at more fundamental issues first? Like:

1. improving the speed of access so they find what they are after

2. creating an easy to use self service website

3. improving the service delivery by streamlining processes

4. reduce overheads - remove clutter and low value offerings

5. allocate resource and reward those for making the above happen

No rocket science here.

Linked-In is a business social network which i believed had a more founded case to be used for business. Although when i looked at it closely while writing this article, i questioned even this. You see, I have a profile but i seldom use it. When i think about it, i don't actually see how it will help me, but i am connected just incase it may! Crickey.. that hurt me to find that out. And for the most part, those i talked to that are linked to my profile could not tell me what direct benefit they get from it either. Wow! Truth is, few that are connected, benefit from it and yet it's a dedicated business network tool. I am sure some do benefit from it and i am also sure those that do, work on it, post updates and run a good size network. For us, our network is offline. Our relationships are in person and over the phone or email. Even Linked-In with its founded business approach does little for businesses like ours.

Social Media has its place but right now its affecting society more negatively than positively. If i want information, i subscribe to an RSS feed or an e-Newsletter, which are specific to the product or topic i care about. Today, things like Twitter are really just the same product in a different wrapper and its making us 'Fat' headed. People think its cool and use them to avoid personal interaction and try to 'automate' what can not be automated. Some of those that are not using it start because they feel out of place... joining to conform. Social Media is attracting people in business for all the wrong reasons.

If your a business manager and your thinking about Social Media, shelve the idea of using it for business and wait for the hype to subside. Leave Social Media to non-business communities, it works there. Go back to fundamental business principles that so many companies are forgetting. Don't catch the "Me Too!" flu (coined by my wife), stand your ground and refuse the "we have to be seen to be doing things" flyers! Simply do the things your customers care most about and give them what THEY want.

Great Websites use Simple Words

2010-08-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

I often visit websites and find different words than i might expect to see in menu's to describe simple tasks or action points.

There are a lot of examples but lets look at a common one.

Words like "Explore" i am seeing more often than i like. Maybe i am just a little critical, but i personally do not want to explore anything. This indicates to me i have time to look around and be surprised by things i might find. Like most people who are busy, i do not. I just want something to indicate to me where things are or how to find them.

Here is a newly emerging word, "Examine". Examine conjures up the idea that i am critiquing the website or product as if i was either an inspector or a reviewer, which i am not. Or that there is a problem with the site and that i need to examine it to find out why. Yes there is a problem mr web owner... let me repeat myself again; I just want something to indicate to me where things are or how to find them.

Someone said to me when i raised this in a discussion over a website sometime ago. "It is not an issue Dean, people know what these words are and they will work out that they need to use this to find things..".

My response:

Nobody wants to work things out, not unless they do it for a living or have alot of time. Least of all when they are in a hurry on a website. Granted the words you talk about are not complex, but if we talk about MOST people MOST often, we will soon find in testing this that most people will not recognise these words or associate them easily or quickly (in a glance) with finding things on a website. Maybe "Explore" you may get away with if your a travel site and people have more time than usual. But why use this word when there is one word more commonly used and understood?

"What, you mean Search?.. thats so out dated."

Look at it another way, take for instance that most cultures are now learning English and use this as their second or third language. Their vocabulary is limited and so using words like "Search" that is repeated across the globe on MOST sites, means they are likely to know what it does. People who have moved to live in here in New Zealand, Australia or even in the USA are having to make English their first language so that they fit-in and get jobs. They are also limited... and so "Search" is something they might understand quicker because the word describes itself well.

If you were to take a bet on which word most people would use first, why would you gamble your viewers on the word "Explore" if there was a better word called "Search"? If you own a Hotel or an Island Resort and viewers want to see your accommodation... use the word "Accommodation" and not the word "Shelter"!

When online use words we all understand and differentiate by your offerings not by confusing your viewers. Using words because they are common is not going to make you look outdated if your helping your customers get to your offering easily. Change for change sake is not helpful to the viewer and it only wastes the customers money.

Web Design is not Graphic Design

2010-07-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

Good web design is not about the way a site looks. The look & feel of a website play a part but often this is already set in motion by the company's decisions offline.

Most companies we deal with already have a logo and a tagline by the time they look at a website with us. With this they have a brand colour palette and in some cases a brand persona that already heavily determines how the website may look & feel. In some cases this makes our life easier with those companies who entrust in our ability as web professionals to help them have a solid performing web presence. Its also these companies that tend to do the long term hard work and obtain the results too.

There are however alot of companies these days wanting to lead the way, be different or differentiate themselves from others by doing unique and probably unconventional things online. Yet they are often still constrained by the brand guidelines i talked about. When this happens, they lose focus on what it is they need to achieve for their audience and end up trying to make a statement that often only they understand. From this an ego website is born. There it will stay with few friends or visitors. Nobody wants to be around someone with a huge ego.

When a customer comes to you with a budget and requires something to be achieved, it is clearly unwise in such a competitive business environment as we see today, to spend their money on unproven things. Its called gambling. As web professionals, its our job to tell them this even if it blows the wind out of their sails. If they listen and see the result of a focused web approach, the wind will return and in a more sustainable way.

Experimenting with new things is a good thing because it pushes the boundaries, but it should also be left to those with the resource and the available funds to throw at it. If your in a business that already has a long term presence and a clear market, the last thing you want to do is experiment with the budget you have on something untested or new.

A company's brand is not the logo nor the tagline, nor the colour palette; it's the identity of the product or services that the company sells. This identity often works with the logo and the tagline.. and so the brand is many things. The brand could be viewed as the way your customers see your company, its services and products in one homogenous thought. Therefore the way your customers experience their time on your website is also part of your brand. Yes it could look nice, but more importantly, it does for them what they came to do.

The use of technology with web often dictates how we feel alot of the time when online. The action of a mouse in ones hand and the frustration of slow servers or broadband cause people to seek out the easiest way to achieve things online. If someone can buy the same product from one site 3 steps faster than another site.... they will use it and refer it way over another competing website. This occurs no matter how nice the website looks. Some of the best sites in this arena of success are not pretty and often quite plain and action oriented. I must admit, i wish this was different because like all people, i love good looking things. But good process and ease of using a website spells simple visual tools, easy to read content and alot of action.

Remember, your companies brand online is more about the experience that someone has on your website than any other part of your business. They do not care if your logo is sideways or if its tagline is smaller than normal. They probably wont notice subtle colour differences either. Only you care about this. Yes they will look for it and associate it with being in the right place. But this is momentary and minor in the role of the website. Once they know its you and they are in the right place, in a matter of milliseconds they are getting down to business with what you have to offer. If your not offering much or its too hard to grasp, in seconds they are also gone.

If you want success online, do not experiment, do not try to make a statement, do not give your viewers stories about nice things that might seem interesting or waste their time. Give them what they want! If you do not know, ask them what it is and then deliver it in an easy and simple to understand manner... that is good web design.

Dedicated resource makes a successful website!

2010-06-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Before you build a website, one might agree that you would at least:

1. decide what you want it to do for your company

2. be clear on who your audience is

3. find out what it is they most want from you online

4. find out what will work for most viewers, most of the time

And you might look at what some of the most successful sites do also:

1. offer simple use and navigation

2. constantly update or maintain the content

3. provide action points for viewers to be able to "do useful stuff"

4. look good and feel nice

So you build the site and its all looking good. But what about when this is done? What then?

In 15 years of involvement online, the one main thing i have noticed that determines the success of any website more than any other, is the allocated resource. Any websites i have seen fail or go-under, almost always came down to lack of resource. Not just content updating, but full maintenance of the website. I constantly visit sites and find broken links, difficult navigation and out of date content. When this happens viewers use the 'Back' button and will never return.

Not only do sites need to be kept upto date with new content, but old content needs to come off! So many sites i visit have pages of information that are hardly ever used let alone visited. Leaving this old content in place blocks that which is of most importance. Upto date and new concise information is the main reason viewers will return to any business website. This can be enhanced with e-Newsletters to remind and prompt viewers with snippets of things that boomerang them back to the website. Someone has to do all this. Yep, a person!

Sounds all too basic? Been told this before? Seems all too simple so you don't believe it and so your going to try something else? I hear these statements alot. There are no Silver Bullets in web. Few have the patience to stick with these things. Most people want fast results and are always looking for a quick solution. Seems to be our world with everything and few want to wade through the thick swamps of effort to find a pot of glory.

It takes effort and time to look after the site like an online business, not a flyer you got handed on the street. Employ some resource or make someone internally accountable for the website with content contributors. If you do not have an online task team, you are wasting your customers time, the companies money and your own credibility.

My advice is much like my dad's - "be patient and focus; nothing worth having comes over night". This can especially be said about good websites.

Reduce Web Complexity - Improve the experience

2010-05-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Recently we have been doing alot of website maintenance for companies where things may not have not been working as well as they liked and/or it never was and now they want to improve it.

The immediate thought from most customers and people surrounding an associated issue with a website or Intranet, is to add something to improve how we use it or understand it. In some cases depending on the platform and software used this maybe unavoidable. However 90% of the time a solution is easier than they think.

Adding in anything naturally increases the size of any online system and often the steps it takes to complete any task; whether for the viewer or for administration. This only adds more complexity to the online experience and forces any user or viewer to spend more time in the system or working it out - let alone adding more content to block that which is important!

The Solution? Take a step back and ask yourself, "what is causing the issue and why?" Then simply improve that process so that the issue is either reduced or goes away. This might sound simple.. and guess what? It is! Often this is much easier than trying to add something to mask the issue. It is definitely a more cost effective solution. Isn't that what all companies would like?

We are so busy creating things in this world we forget to improve what we have let alone use it to its full term. This boils down to my previous post about tweaking websites a bit at a time rather than redesigning them. If this tact is taken, a website can evolve to become a wonderful experience with great processes.

Michael Jordon is famous for saying that he missed more baskets than he shot and that this is why he was so successful at the game. The message is clear.. we improve on things from our experience of what we already know. We base our next decision with what we are doing in that space and on what we have just learned. If you pass most of this off only to completely redesign a website, your probably avoiding the reasons why the first attempt never did what you hoped for.. or why it even failed.

A good result just this week using such an approach, cost the customer only 4 hours programming work and removed a problem that had been going on for several years. If the customer had gone with the first idea of an additional feature to correct the fault rather than eliminating it, it would have increased the time viewers spent online, avoided the actual issue and spent twice as much money. Just think how messy any system would be if we did this all the time and you pretty much have a picture of the Internet.

Lets reduce the IT pollution and make our lives easier, not more complex. Think "Edit" before you "Add".

Brilliant People tweak their Websites!

2010-05-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

Rosie Brilliant is a lady who cares about her customers. When you walk into her Cafe in Paddington on the skirts of Brisbane City, you are walking into her lounge. No wonder then that her Cafe is called The Java Lounge.

Rosie recently talked to a designer about the general look of her cafe and how she might improve it. Ironically, nothing came of it because the designer started to suggest things that were not along the lines of her clientele. So Rosie stopped the idea of the redesign because she felt uncomfortable about what was suggested. This is because she knew her clients and knew them well.

The Java Lounge is a semi retro style cafe.. it has an almost mature university cafe feel about it; like a comfy lounge. Its decorated with the latest visiting musician posters in one area, magazines, comfy couches, coloured chairs with plain tables and all set in an older style wooden window-framed premises next to an Antique dealer. Where i live in New Zealand, its the kind of place that people are looking for and wanting to tell their friends about! The coffee's good, the food better and the atmosphere is relaxing with a peaceful and mild cafe ambience. A gluten free menu i might add :)

Rosies customers love all this about her Cafe. I can see it when they arrive and how they relax in her Lounge. Rosie loves her customers.. they are her life. Rosie could have redesigned her cafe, but would it have been any better? Probably not. At least not for her current clients. Even if she had done the design well.. would it have improved her profits? Probably not. The place is always busy on a working morning and packed on the weekends. How can you improve that? Maybe some minor tweaks with process, wastage or even minor additions/removals within the cafe, thats about it really.

It is likely that many of her current customers would not have liked the new design. She could have spent alot of money for no improvement and even suffered a decline in business.

People come to The Java Lounge because they like the Content - its a comfy home like place that is easy to find, easy to get around, serves good coffee and great food.. all with a smile. Simply put, her customers get what they want; and Rosie knows how to give it to them, thats her success.

Very few websites i look at need redesigns to make them work. Some are working well already and just need some minor tweaks. Often the owner does not realise this and they look at an expensive redesign. It is not necessary that websites look amazing and glamorous to keep your customers happy. Infact, often the opposite. Some of the most successful sites are not glamorous at all. Most customers just want to find what they need and leave. Even if that is a nice picture or a product.. and it need not be served on a red carpet entry. Often such entries are distracting because the design lacks focus and may even falter on the way, tainting your experience.

Tweak your website monthly with the help of a focused strategy that concentrates on what it is the website does well... or should do for your customers. Stop worrying about what people think of it and worry about those who use it or want to use it. It is too easy to be side tracked by peers and their ideas on what looks good rather than listening to the experts.

Who are the experts? Well they are your customers silly :)

Content is King

2010-04-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

A good website has its content regularly checked, updated and improved. This takes effort. Effort in, results out.

Even more so if your selling something. The principles of this are not much different offline. You need good stock, good processes, window displays, a way for people to see your product well and you need to keep new product coming in etc etc. Same online. Infact online you probably need to work harder at the visual aspect as people are using 1 of 5 senses to determine if they want to buy it. Combine that with the technology they are using; the browser, slow internet access at times... and you have a pretty narrow window of opportunity to sell a product to a viewer! You need do alot more things right online that offline. Viewers can not see it close up, smell it, nor feel it. You also need to keep testing the processes they use to buy.. tweaking it, updating, emailing etc etc. Lots of work every day and by someone. Thats right, a person!

I am amazed how often people come to me with an idea for an online business and expect that once set up, it requires little effort. That once they do a lump of work, throw some money at it, that i will just run. This is even more common in corporates with basic information sites. If you do not allocate the resource to maintain a site in a minimal fashion, it simply will not get used. The effort placed on content is directly proportional to the success of any website.

Over the past month, i have monitored a well designed shopping site referred to me by my wife. It places a huge effort in updates, feeds and emails about new items etc. Whoever runs this site, puts a huge effort into making this one of the best online shopping experiences we have seen. It is my wife's favourite site because its easy, simple, clean, constantly updated and fun to use. The design is simple but very crisp and the effort is clearly placed on content. Interestingly enough, this site has content contributors as it is a Trading site. People sell their own products on this site. www.Etsy.com goes through a huge effort to make sure that the contributors are well educated on how to sell their items, what works and the photo quality of their products. Photo's are hugely important for any site like this and these guys do it extremely well.

www.etsy.com

A Good Website

2010-04-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

I seldom come across a business website that does most things well. Recently my wife and i were looking for new blinds and i spoke with someone who worked in the industry and this prompted me to look them up online. I was pleasantly surprised. They were easily found i Google under a multitude of common industry search words.

What do i love about the site itself? On the homepage i can find things i need to get what i want done. Lots of action points.. things i can do to achieve something and quickly. Its very easy to read. The designer did not get carried away with fonts that are hard to read or flash images that waste my time loading. He presented the most important things up front that i need to do business with them.. its that simple.

When most viewers world wide only drill down on 3 pages maximum, the homepage needs to be compelling and to the point. This particular website makes it easy for people coming here to use their service and/or book a consultation. While you could argue somethings about this site which may improve it further, its very unlikely it would improve the business it gets. Without any marketing, the site generates 2-3 new leads every day and these have the highest conversion rate for their business. Its only a central city business too.

Business online is all about Convenience. Make it easy for your customers, speak their language and they will use you.

www.aucklanddrape.co.nz

Most people, Most often, Most value!

2010-04-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

Often what you don't say is more important than what you do say when it comes to a website.

People have a tendency to want to share their experiences, go into depth about their products or services and tell their life story.. as if it might be interesting.. as if we all have time to read a small book. Sometimes this works... people who subscribe to blogs, like to read and keep informed about subjects they want to know more about. However, on a website, this is often not the case. When publishing content on websites you need to be ruthlessly short and to the point. In some cases your content does not need to be written or read perfectly. Bullet points are as good for a customer as any well written short paragraph; often better. People browse sites way more than they read. Recognition of keywords or phrases is high on their list... scanning, looking and skip-reading till they find what it is they are after. Bullet points make quick pieces of information easy to scan and assimilate.

Have you ever seen or read magazines that publish sections with short feature articles on cool furniture designs, electronic equipment or gadgets? Most of the time these have 50-100 words on the item, the price and where it came from or how to buy it. A page can have 6-9 of these products from which you can browse and read what interests you most. These are my favourite mags. I do not care for a personal story on things over 3 pages, all i want is the facts so i can make up my own mind. It has changed out there; customers are savvy and informed.

This is our world... masses of things to know about and take in with limited time. Good websites get to the point before viewers yawn and leave.

If i walk into a good wine shop and i see piles of deal stands around me, I can scan quickly within a minute and determine if one of the displays might have what i want. If the wine store has done their homework and understands their customers well, a large percentage of all sales will come from these display stands or piles that decorate the floor. Most wine shops these days do a pretty good job... its taken some years to get to this i might add. However occasionally i walk into a store and there are a few displays only with mostly shelves... rows of them. I have to stand in front of these shelves and scan my way through wine types, maker and price. Its simply too hard for anyone in a hurry and its not convenient. Sometimes this is fine if i have time to look for a special bottle, but most people like me will be in and out quickly. These stores do not last for long.

Know your customers and concentrate on what MOST of them want. If you worry about the minor request or the less frequent viewer and try to cater to each of these in varying degrees with more content, you will block the most valuable content that MOST people want to read.

Don't try to be all things to all people!

Websites are about Tasks

2010-04-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

When dealing with new customers over an existing website, i am often amazed at the lack of measurables they employ. Without any, you are simply guessing what might be happening. It stuns me that a web company will build something with no accountability for the result and from alot assumptions. Often they don't even employ simple free statistics to know how many visitors they might have. However, statistics only provide a web owner with a very general idea of what is going on. You should not make any critical decisions for a website based on any statistics even if they are comprehensive.

The best measurables are ones that come from simple action points on pages. Things that viewers need to physically click, fill-in or do. These do not need to be complex. Most people that visit business sites simply want to do things and get out so the simplest things are the most measurable. Gerry McGovern terms these 'Tasks'. A 'Task' is anything a viewer needs to do, or any process they need to complete, based on the reason they came to the site in the first place. Often the viewers requirement starts offline.. and so they go looking for answers online. These can easily be followed or recorded in a database with the website.

Any good business website will have many Tasks that draw people to it. Websites are being used more and more to help customers/viewers complete daily or even hourly tasks; simple requirements for things that are requested regularly by many.

Low complexity, high volume tasks suit websites. Simple quick things that are done often by many.

High complexity, low volume tasks should not be on a website - these should be handled externally under a request or managed process. Eg, point them to a phone number or contact form for follow up.

Bearing in mind, you can have a complex piece of online software that helps a customer calculate or complete something in a relatively simple manner without any complexity in its use. This is probably more applicable to Technical niche market products.

What is a simple Task? A contact form. You can have many and the simpler the better. Rather than one, have tailored ones for parts of the site that make it easy for customers to ask or request information. Pre-fill the title for them and hint on what it is they may need to ask you.

Email address links are lazy let alone dangerous in terms of SPAM from automated systems.

Contact forms are often deterring for alot of viewers. Thats because they tend to ask for too many fields to be filled in. A good start is to ask for only the most necessary details and then follow up with the customer. Further information can be gained when the relationship starts. If the Tasks you provide on your website are fast and easy to get something done or actioned, that first impression is a wonderful experience for the viewer. Any website owner who expects the customer to fill in 7-10 compulsory fields in one go, is hardly being helpful or customer centric.

No matter how hard we try to make websites and online tools replace business processes, one thing is sure; they will never replace us and the need we have as people for constant contact.

Websites are Publications

2010-04-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

Often when we meet with a new customer that requires an online solution from us of sorts, there is a variety of people sitting around the table to add their input. Most of the time, there is at least one IT person present, if not two. We get into discussions about what to use for programming the website, the platform and where it might sit. We talk about trendy apps like Twitter and fancy animated ideas to make the site look cool. We pretty much waste most of the first meeting talking about Technology. Yet this means nothing to our viewers when most of them just want a phone number and want to know what we do or have on offer.

The primary function of IT people in companies is to look after IT infrastructure and make sure that the Technology that is in use for the company, continues to operate so that everyone communicates efficiently and easily. Their involvement with Intranets maybe much higher than that of a website because it is often internally hosted and may even tie into allsorts of other systems. With websites, i always suggest to any company, unless it has sensitive high security information, to host it externally. It is faster for viewers and easier to access for the builder or designer to maintain or update. The costs associated with getting IT groups to do simple things like make an A record change, is phenomenal and only frustrates the people we work with trying to get their websites updated or live.

Business websites especially are simply online publishing and communications. They are mostly about 'words'. Without these, Google would not see it and we would not find it. What these websites sit on or how they are programmed is no where near as important as what they say. Most generic website hosting systems will cater to 99% of all requirements without getting into new technologies or languages.

So, lets take a typical corporate website. If we publishes projects and product information into this in a similar fashion to making a brochure or catalogue for instance, why are we are asking our IT people to be involved in what the website does for our customers? What it says or how it looks? Do any of you involve IT when you create a brochure? No. The only involvement that IT has is if it's hosted internally or they hold the domain name etc. That should be the limit of their involvement unless they are the actual builders. Even then, they should be shown what the design is and what is required to build it, nothing more.

I am ex IT. I know how personal IT people can become and how involved they feel they need to be. Its a trait common to alot of technical people. But this is not about them, this is about making good business sense and giving our customers what they want. I am surprised how bad some corporates are at knowing where to draw the line. Often management try to be too PC and involve everyone so they all feel a sense of belonging. This is costly and confusing, often producing bad results which take forever to resolve. In most website jobs we do, a huge amount of the budget is used to manage and facilitate all "the fingers in the pie". Organisations could save thousands if they got this right and realised that Technology is not a "Silver Bullet" and the focus should be on the written word.

Using similar words to a friend of mine who is my Mentor in this field, www.gerrymcgovern.com, i submit to you this statement:

"Technology is an enabler, it helps a task or process to be done, it is not the solution and should be used as one. When used as a solution the 'I' (information) in IT is neglected. Customers will be neglected too and be expected by a company centric website, to learn the 'T'. "

The Web - what is it really?

2010-04-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

As a web professional, there is no possible way i can expect to understand all things web. From the equipment to the programming and onto the viewers who use our websites; it is a massive all encompassing beast. What's even more interesting than its size, is how it survives. Needless to say, while i am an expert in my field, i only know some of what is out there. I do not know it all and i do not have all the answers. How i see it may not be what others see. However, i have noticed over the years, that my interpretation of the web to my customers and friends is somewhat unique in how i view it.

If we all dropped dead tomorrow from some cell destroying bomb and the non organic parts of the world were left in tact, (like the power-stations generators, which continued to run for sometime) the web would die. The very fact that we use it is what keeps it alive. Constant input and knowledge from us as people is how the web grows. If we stopped using Google for searching, it would die too. The web's very existence is based on our input and usage of it. The web is a complete reflection of human society on the planet... slightly delayed in time.

The web itself is a messy place without alot of rules. It could be likened to the early days of automobiles prior to traffic lights. I would say street addresses and delivery of post was equally as difficult in those days.

A domain name could be considered a street address of the online highway. There were domain names bought back in the mid to late eighties but no actual web as we know it. In essence, it has only be recognised by the public and been really 'usable' since probably 1994. If your in the South Pacific like me, more likely 1996. This is probably because of the development of the PC and data access, as the Internet was in existence well before all this.

A British Scientist, Tim Berners Lee is credited with inventing the web in 1990 when he successfully communicated over the Internet with HTTP. Thats my understanding of it anyway.

What has amazed me since i have been involved in web from 1996, is the amount of people that see it as a 'play pen'. It is quite technical and somewhat difficult for someone who has seldom used a computer, to get setup and use it wisely. It is a 'play pen' to a degree because without that, we would not have experimentation to gain new practices. Without that, the web would not grow.

My involvement is with businesses and their websites 99% of the time; not leisure websites or entertainment sites. My focus is online business and use of the web and websites to support the businesses in a economical fashion while being productive and cost effective. You have no idea how hard that is! The 'play pen' effect is so overwhelming and mostly driven by technical & creative people. While this is important to the web's growth, it contributes a massive amount of misunderstanding and confusion about the web's capability and what its best used for and why. These 'play pen' people see the web, or a website and the technology surrounding it, as a "Silver Bullet". In their minds, it's the answer to all their problems and a new way to do what we have done in person, for thousands of years before the web came along. Boy are they in for a shock. Some of them already.

Cellphones came from full duplex radio telephone; or to describe it in a better sense, two way radio that could talk both ways at once rather than using a button and waiting - half duplex.

This was working in places around the world in the late 60's and early 70's. Its taken some 40-50 years to evolve properly and thats not including the 50 years prior of radio itself. My point is, the web is young, very very young. Its like a baby in nappies.

Give the web another 20-30 years and we will see some really interesting changes. Law is the big one. Ways to firewall (easily) real business sites from the crap that is out there. Ways to police what people put online and ways to stop just anyone doing it.

You need a license to drive a car, i can see the web going the same way.. eventually.