Doing Web-Based Communications Right—Part 1 of 3

August 29th, 2008

Large corporations and well-funded start ups have the bankroll to build web communications with large amounts of research and planning. There are teams of people working on tasks such as:

• Defining purpose
• Defining goals
• Clarifying guiding principles
• Articulating desired outcomes
• Performing user research
• Brainstorming
• Scheduling
• Defining tasks and assigning to people to get it all done
• Delivering the product (website, email campaign, etc.)

For the small business person who may not have the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in the design and development of their website, there is a way to get the most value using a simple process to build or assess your web communications.

The first step is to ask yourself, or your company some basic questions about why you are doing this, what your desired outcome is, and how to get it done.

Here are some of the first questions to ask:

Purpose

• Why are we building a web site? Or if you have one, why do we have a web site? What is its purpose?
  • Inform people about your company?
  • Sell goods or services?
  • Create a sense of community?
  • Establish you or your company as a leader within your industry?

Guiding Principles

• While we are building this, what will help guide us?
  • Do we want to have fun?
  • Do we want it done efficiently to meet a deadline?
  • Are we working under a budget constraint?
  • Is there a philosophy, or mantra, that should be repeated while working on this?

Desired Outcome

• What do you want to achieve?
  • Do you want to make money?
  • Do you want to get more customers?
  • Do you want to establish your new brand?
  • Do you want to establish yourself, or your company as a thought leader?
• How can we measure our success?
  • Pick a measurable desired outcome.
  • Can the desired outcome be broken down into smaller milestones? What are they?

Get it Going

This should be plenty to get you started on thinking about your web-based communication project—or any project for that matter. In part two I will write about the next steps in the process, and in part three I will write about the conclusion; where does this get you?

If you have any comments or feedback please share below.

Do You Own Your Domain Name?

August 20th, 2008

This is an important question to find an answer to. When you or your company setup your website, how did you get your domain name?

• Did you buy it yourself?
• Did you have someone buy it for you?
• Did it come as part of a package deal? (Meaning that you got your domain name as part of some ’special website deal’)

This may seem like a trivial matter for some people. However, I know of at least one business owner who found out the hard way your domain name is serious business. When he wanted to move his entire web site to a less expensive web hosting company he discovered that the domain name he thought he owned was not registered in his name.

The web hosting company was the authorized registrant on the domain, not him. Technically this means the hosting company owned the domain name - not him. You need to be named registrant.

There are three “contacts” for a registered domain name:

• Administrative
• Technical
• Billing

At the very least you should be the “Administrative” contact, and most likely the “Billing” contact as well.

Is this the case for you?

Some of you will know, like I do, that you definitely own your domain name. But what if you are not sure? Where do you turn to find out. I have the answer for you. You need to do a “whois” search.

Go to this web site, called AllWhoIs.

Once at this web site enter the domain name you want to search and its suffix (.com, .net, .org, etc.)

Press “search” and the results will show in the window below. Look to see if you are the registrant and administrative contact. If not you need to get in touch with who is to transfer the domain.

Anything to share?

Please do so in the comments