your online potential
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Mendr.net will be delivering a presentation entitled Getting It Right Online: Six Things to Mull Over at the next Network Mayo meeting (main event will be on “Employment Law”).We shall be focusing on new online developments and opportunities from Twitter to Cloud Computing.Although Network Mayo, as an organisation, is for women in business, professions and the arts, the event is open to all.

Event: Network Mayo Open Meeting

Place: Day’s Hotel, Castlebar, Mayo

Time: 7:30pmCost: €10 for non-members

Further Information: At Network Mayo

We hope to see you there!Flickr Image is Le Penseur (Musée Rodin) by Dalbera

Provide Human-Readable Error Messages with Full Navigational Tools. The most common of these messages is “Error 404 - Not Found”, usually triggered when a malformed link or mistyped URL causes the browser to seek a non-existent web page. Unfortunately, the default message is usually unlinked and written in technical terms. The experience may well confound your user, driving them away from your site forever.Test your error messages by entering a false URL in your domain. If the result leaves you marooned, with no links or suggestions, you should find out from your internet server provider how to set-up a redirect to a page that

1: Looks like it belongs to your site, complete with logos, menu items, and

2: incorporates helpful, hyperlinked suggestions–such as a a link to the Site Map.

And, while we’re on the subject of not driving your users up the wall, never put an “Under Construction” message anywhere on your website.

Flickr Image by N.R.

If you are using a third-party content provider, providing you with advertising or syndicated content, make sure the content is appropriate and that any keywords you provide interact satisfactorily with their algorithm. Take care over this: you do not want to end up with ad content that, say, undermines your mission.

Flickr Image by jonathan_moreau

Sometimes it’s the simple stuff that bears repeating. Take care to provide a full Navigational Set on every page–and always have a site map one click away from anywhere your users might be on your website.

The Main Menu should contain links to the content that is particular to your site. If you run a bookstore this might include menu items such as “Fiction”, “Psychology”, “History”, and “Poetry”.

On your Secondary Menu, often placed at the bottom of the webpage, you should place links to more generic or conventional content e.g. “Site Map”, “About Us”, “Help”, “Contact Us”.

Pop-out menus or Sub-Menus may not be necessary for your website. However, to continue with the bookseller example, the “Fiction” menu-item might pop-out a sub-menu item containing “Bestsellers”, “Novels”, “Short Stories”, and “Newly Published”.

What we call Context Palettes contain triggers for operations such as “Print”, “Email”, “Bookmark”, or “Post to Del.icio.us”. You may not need to provide this set of options for your users. They are of particular use in journalistic or blogging contexts and are to be found more and more in other settings.

When you provide a site map, make sure it is a site map and not, as I once found at a national Irish newspaper, a Content Index (which, since it originated offline, did not reference the RSS feed list I was looking for). A site map should be exhaustive and set out in a form that accurately reflects the structure of the entire website.

Flickr Image by Editor B

Beyond the basic information described in the previous post, you need to extend your content through smart repurposing, imaginative creation, and decorous use of syndication.

• Gut the Archives
  • Have you material written or produced for other media in the past? Examples might include conference presentations, in-house magazines, trade journals, newspaper clippings, and recorded interviews for television or radio.

• Repurpose In-House Content
  • Are there any items of correspondence, memoranda or in-house publications you could modify for public consumption?
• Offer a Public Service
  • Is there a public service you could offer to your users? For example, a Community Calendar listing forthcoming events might attract the attention of your target audience in a way that your own content, in itself, might not.
    Undertake a cost/benefit analysis before committing to a public service. Do you have the resources to stick with it? Once undertaken, do not fail to deliver the promised content.

• Incorporate Content
  • Are there other organisations you are keen to partner with online? For example, you could have news stories relating to your industry in a column on your home page.

• Think Out of the Box
  • Is there any “out of the box” content you can provide? Creative work can boost the character of your online presence significantly. For instance, your accountancy site may be enlivened by an illustrated travel diary from one of the partners who spends her summers trekking the Himalayas.

Flickr Image by dao hodac

Last time, we set out our first principle: Gather the Best Content.

Like charity, the quest for content starts at home. How? By asking and then taking pains to fully answer basic questions about your own organisation. At the end of this process, you should, at the very least, accomplish the following for your online visitors:

• Tell Them Who You Are.

What’s the big secret? Tell people who you are and why you are proud of what you do. Share the values of your firm or group. Try to impart some of the flavour of your workplace or product. Elaborate on your Mission Statement and the origins of your motto.

Smaller companies are at a clear advantage here since they are less hidebound by the anti-individualism produced by the sheer size of large corporations.

(One sector that clearly shows this in effect is that of Publishing. Large publishers have the dullest sites imaginable while small- and medium-sized presses, still connected at a human level to their mission, are much more able to convey their personality.)

• Tell Them What You Do.

You may, like me, have been to sites, particularly involving new technologies, where it is impossible to work out exactly what the firm is doing. Don’t let this happen in your own case: are you clear about your activities? Are there procedures you undertake that you might want to explain in more detail? State clearly what you do and how you do it.

Even if what you do seems to you as old as the hills you should identify and articulate what makes you different. If, for example, you are running a restaurant, your unique selling point might be a family involvement going back to the Romans. Or the fact that you are using only ingredients beginning with the letter “B”. Whatever it is, make sure your online visitors get to hear about it.

• Refute Your Enemies.

Is there negative information in the public domain you should be countering or addressing? Make sure the facts and figures supporting your case are easily accessible by the constituency you need to influence.

Flickr Image by Ben Zvan

At the dawn of web-time in the mid-90s, many executives scratched their heads about what, beyond a home-page with their address and tax information, they were supposed to put on their website. I remember, as late as 1998, having trouble persuading a young and savvy advertising executive that there was any point in businesses–other than Amazon and the like–even having a website.

We have now, at least, reached the point that serious organisations, in business or not, consider a website as basic a pre-requisite of their public interaction as a letterhead and business cards. And most of these, happily for their clients, think of web maintenance as more than simply dumping text and a logo on a home page.

Beyond obvious information, you need to extend your content through…

• imaginative creation
• smart repurposing, and
• third-party relationships.

Then organize your content into structured blocks in the most optimally navigable form possible.

In other words: deliver the best possible content in the best possible way.

Flickr Image by bizmac