SELF-HELP RESOURCES

Build an Effective Web Site for Your Customers

Plan your web site
Prepare your content
Design Tips
Promote your web site
Search engines tips

PLAN YOUR WEB SITE

Here are some ideas on planning for your site.

Define your goals.

What you would like your site to accomplish?

Inform your clients on your business?

Attract new clients with news on your achievements, races won, horses bred?

Inform current clients on forth coming events?

Determine what you want on your site so that you can meet the needs of both your current clients, and to attract new clients.

• Use customer quotes and photos of your work and business, stable, stud, workshop, to demonstrate that your business is trustworthy.
  

• Provide information about what makes your business unique.

• Showcase quotes from any press coverage you have received.
  

• Include a map on your site to help local visitors find your office, stable, stud, farm, workshop.

• Structure your site to help clients find the information they need. Create sections such as:
  
  

Home Page - The first page that people see. It’s recommended to display your logo, an image of your work, your establishment, or yourself to visually establish the identity of your venture. The Home Page should convey the purpose and personality of your business and provide brief details such as a description of what your business does.
News – your latest news
Introduction – explain your business
Profile - you
Staff – your staff
Stable News – show pictures of horse in work, the latest stable stars
Jockeys – the latest stable star
Owners – profile your successful owners
Stallions – with pictures and pedigree pages
Broodmares – with pictures and pedigree pages
Yearlings – display your yearlings with comments, photos and pedigrees
Foals – show the latest arrivals
Sales Results – list the yearling prices
Contact us - provide contact details so your clients can contact you
Directions – where to find you
FAQ - frequently asked questions about your business

• Create an online form so your clients can easily send you information
  

• Enable customers to sign up for a mailing list and receive periodic updates about your business and specials.

PREPARE THE CONTENT

Write concisely
Your web pages should be informative and concise. If you adapt a conventional paper document for the web, cut its length by at least 50%.

Less scrolling
People generally prefer to see small chunks of information on individual pages, with links to the information that is most useful to them.

Content priority
Always have the most important items at the top of your page – this is the first thing people are going to see, so you need to grab their attention quickly.

Use a readable design

• many headings

• headings specific and explanatory

• short sentences

• text structured in short paragraphs

• bullet points

• bullet lists short (about 5 items)

• black text on white background, or dark text on pale background

• plenty of empty space

• no italics or solid capitals

• no underlined text as it’s expected to be a link

• some key phrases in bold

ABOUT DESIGN

An elegant, contemporary and versatile style of graphics is utilised – this enhances visual content and re-enforces the impression of a dynamic and professional organisation.

A consistent graphic style is applied throughout each template in order to achieve a unity of theme and structure across each web site.

Each website is designed as a cross browser solution to maintain an openness and accessibility.

Each template has clear easy to follow navigation that will allow users to "leaf" through the various pages of the Web Site.

Each web site owner requires any graphical enabled web browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape, though use of IE4.01 SP1 or higher is recommended.

All websites are optimised for different screen resolutions.

All websites are optimised for search engines.

Remember a few simple design rules:

Simple is best.
The key to effective design on the web is to keep it simple. Do not get carried away with loads of fonts and millions of colours. The simpler the design, the better it is. Keep the site clean and uncluttered.

Standard fonts.
Not every machine has the same fonts as you. Make your text readable by using a standard font that everyone will have. Arial and Verdana are standard on PCs, Helvetica and Geneva on Macs, and Times on both.

Images.
Remember to allow sufficient time to gather images from all their different sources. This could mean phoning printers, advertising agencies and so on. You also need to allow time to scan and optimise them all.

Contact Thoroughbred Design and Promotion services. We can do it for you!

Graphics can be used to great effect on a home page, but they can easily be overused. Don't clutter your page or fill it with slow loading images.

Make your site easy to navigate.
A list of links should appear in the same place (most commonly on the top or left-hand sides) of each of your pages.
If your site is extensive, the best method is to use a left-hand panel to hold the buttons/links.

Colour schemes.
Use colour schemes that are kind on the eye. Keep a consistent colour scheme throughout the site. Do not use colours that clash. Choose a colour scheme that reflects your corporate identity.

Background.
For your background, it is better to use light colours (white, off-white, light gray). Black can be a good colour to use if you will be displaying pictures on your Web site, because black sets off photographs well. However, do not choose black and other dark colours if your site will contain a lot of text. Dark backgrounds do make pages hard to read. It is a good idea to use the same background colour on all of your pages.

Animation.
Animated image is a good way to draw attention to key information on your site.
As a general rule, you should never use more than one animated image on a given page. Animations should never be used just for decoration proposes.

PROMOTE YOUR WEB SITE

Incorporate your site in your current advertising efforts.
You should include your web site address in all advertising documents and promotional material that you produce - company letterhead, business cards, your brochures, your mailings, your fliers, yellow pages ads, all e-mail messages that you send, TV commercials, give away material.

Unlike other promotional printed materials, the great advantage of a Web site is that it can easily be updated to inform your clients about your latest achievements or projects, races won, horses bred or to advertise your latest sale. By promoting your web address, you can be confident that you are always providing up-to-date information.

Keep your site up to date.
Frequent updates help keep visitors coming back and give them a reason to visit your site again.

ThoroughbredNet web directory
All ThoroughbredNet Member web sites are listed at searchable New Zealand Thoroughbred industry web directory FREE.

SEARCH ENGINES TIPS

Optimisation for search engines

There are some tips on how to optimise your submission to search engines.

TITLE

• starts with lead key phrase

• up to 10 words

• the most important keywords are positioned at the beginning

• include business name

• should sound as a phrase

• should make sense as a bookmark

DESCRIPTION

• starts with lead key phrase

• include as much keywords as possible

• keywords close together

• first 10 words give the idea what the site is about

• first 20 words – full picture

KEYWORDS

• list keywords in order of importance

• use natural choice of people searching

• approximately 150 words are allowed

• use longer variations of the word and plurals

• use mostly phrases

• if repeating, maximum of 3 repeats

• if repeating, repeat only after 7 words

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