It's over. After three grueling weeks of racing, Lance Armstrong
has won what some call the world's most difficult sporting
event, the Tour De France. The US newspapers gave the event a
cursory notation the Monday after the finish and showed a single
photo of Lance in his yellow jersey (used to identify the Tour
leader) sporting an ear-to-ear grin. But those of us who are
avid cyclists and follow bicycle racing know there is much more
to winning an event like this than simply one man riding to
glory after three weeks and over 2,000 miles.
The world sees only Armstrong, but behind this cycling
phenomenon is an incredible team. Actually there are two teams.
One is the group of cyclists that support, protect and lead
Armstrong during the actual racing. The other is the support
team no one sees. This consists of all the coaches, trainers,
therapists, medical staff, chefs, team managers, mechanics and
even the people who drive the support vehicles.
So what does this have to do with your website? As I go through
my annual TDF withdrawal, I have begun to equate the US Postal
Service cycling team to a well performing Web site. Here is a
relationship of the various elements.
1) Message The message Armstrong sent to his competition this
year was, "Don't even think of messing with me." It was a very
strong statement. What message does your Website portray? Do you
tell your site visitors right up front what it is your company
does, what problems you solve and how? People will relate to
real problems your company solves for clients.
2) Focus Armstrong has a team of elite cyclists whose only job
is to support their team leader. Think of all the pages on your
Website as the support for your message. These are the pages
people will look at and read to learn about your company, your
services and your products. Enforce your message, provide clear
and understandable information, be consistent. Most importantly,
stay focused.
3) Identity The "posties" (as the US Postal team riders are
called) all wear the same blue jerseys. Each team has its own
colors. Your Web site pages should all look alike. I have seen
many sites with a "killer" home page, yet the rest of the site
is mundane. Often, subsequent pages seem to degrade and change
in design and layout. I begin to wonder if I am still on the
original site. The same logo should appear on every page and be
consistent with your navigation. People should never have to
wonder if they have left your site, regardless of which page
they are looking at.
4) Support Just as the US Postal team has a plethora of
behind-the-scenes support people, your Web site needs hidden
support.
The first line is your hosting company. If your site is down due
to a malfunctioning or overloaded server, it is a reflection on
you. I have had hosting companies forget to upload their entire
password file for shared hosting sites when bringing a new
server online. Another ISP never configured Apache on a new
server to display HTM pages, only HTML. A third copied files
onto a new server and lost all the CGI permissions, so none of
the forms or back end programs worked.
Be sure you have clean HTML code. Your site must work in all
browsers and across all platforms. A good HTML editor will write
clean HTML. Many developers still write in text mode and
occasionally forget an opening or ending tag. One bad tag can
ruin your whole page.
There is a bevy of discussion these days on the use of CSS
(cascading style sheets) and yet I see very little mention of
how differently Netscape and Explorer interpret these commands.
If you do not want to perform the necessary testing yourself use
an online service to do it for you.
Be sure your JavaScript works on in all browsers. Recently, I
was asked to critique a specific site only to find the image
rollovers did not work properly in Netscape. This is basic
stuff. Is your CGI reliable? These behind-the-scenes programming
tools that are used to enhance a site can easily destroy it if
they do not work properly.
5) Content The US Postal Service cycling team has depth and
discipline. On a Web site, this is reflected in the quantity,
quality and consistency of your content. Aside from articles and
white papers, the content must be short and consistent
throughout the site. Stay well focused and direct content to
your potential client base.
6) Anticipate Every day before the individual race begins, the
US Postal support team drives ahead to the next city. They
literally dominate a hotel and prepare for the arrival of the
riders. The team chefs take over the kitchen, preparing the
types of meals each individual rider prefers. Anticipating the
feeding habits of a machine that burns over 5,000 calories a day
is no mean feat in itself. The cyclists never look at a menu.
Their individually prepared meal is waiting for them when they
arrive.
As you lay out your web site, try to anticipate where your
visitors will go next. You can then design your navigation
system to lead the visitor to the next page, or set of pages.
You can pre-load images so the visitor does not have to wait for
them to load. You can direct people to a specific page by
continuing a block of text onto another page. Imagine yourself
as a chef for a racer who hates meat, will tolerate pork and
devour chicken. How long would you last if you gave him a rare
steak?
About the author:
Ken Hablow is an independent Website designer and marketing
consultant in Boston MA. He can be reached through his Website
at www.khgraphics.com
