Looks good, why isn't it working?

For many regional marketers, their Internet plans still begin and end with a website. For those of us who have devoted our professional careers to this scary yet exciting technology, such thinking feels as old as black and white TV.

Yet this first hurdle continues to be the most difficult of all, M. Saleh discusses how the website is much more than fancy images and flash animation.

'I spent so much time on the content'

Sure you did. You've done your homework preparing the right content and the guessed sections of your website. You got a talented copy writer and edited a straight forward and creative copy. You're done with your work. So what happens now? You give it to the interactive agency you just contracted and you expect to get it exactly as you wanted.

The agency says: 'cool, let's do it'

So they give your content to the creative team and they come up with pretty pictures and an interface for your anticipated website that has to bring in results. You see the pretty pictures and you're fallen for one and say hey! Kick off!

Finally it goes live

So they did everything as you asked them. You spent so much on ads to get your website the visitors (potential customers) that you want to convince of your products/services. They all come to and visit you. No results. So what happened? You spent a big amount of your budget on internet traffic and bandwidth that your visitors consumed. Why didn't they click and sign-up? So the agency blames it on the region and how it is still not such a matured region when it comes to online and interactive media. WRONG! Don't buy it!

What went wrong?

One of the most important points neglected during preparing for web production is designing the information structure and web-copy. Marketers usually visualize how their content should be displayed and even think of the menu tabs.

That's not your job, you give your content and the brief and you're done from your side. So ask for an information architect to organize your content in a manner that does not break interaction and does not create you multi-level menus and drop-downs that never end. Ask for a tweaked version of your content.

Ask for wire-frames of your website interface before jumping to the pretty pictures. That ensures that the creative team does not design whatever they think is right, but what is supposed to be designed.

Next time:


• Make sure the interactive agency you're about to contract does Information design and architecture


• Do not jump to look and feel of the website before knowing how the skeleton of the pages look like.


• Ask for usability analysis reports and anticipated results


• Stress on accessibility and cross-browser compatibility, there are tens of browsers other than Internet Explorer that you use


• Do not use buzzwords and jargon related to web-design, you'll be taken for granted as knowing everything-you get no explanations later


• Ask for web standards and techniques used and ensure compliancy

Let's make better websites, let's market better.