Businesses today face a myriad of challenges that hinder them from achieving their goals and objectives. One of the challenges that businesses face is the website. Most businesses do not have strategic websites. Most of the websites are empty without adding any value to the business. The web site is the medium through which the employees and the customers interact. There is a need to ensure that the user experience in interacting with the website takes place in an operational manner. Most organizations approach the management of the website in a bottom-up perspective. Most of the challenges that companies face is the lack of strategic web management which has been ignored for long. The websites are not taken to be an important tool for strategic management. This is because of the lack of planning for the websites. Most of the websites do not have strategic interactive procedures to engage the clients in the needs assessment. Websites are important tools that should be used to get the needs and assess the strategic standing of the companies. Marketing is an important component of any organization. Strategic organizations post important data on their websites. They make use of their websites to convey important updates of their organization. From time to time, their websites are up to date with what is happening in the organization (Sisson, Hill-Briggs, and Levine 181).
Websites should be built in unison. The content, functionality, the optimization, and experience should be unified. This is a strategic challenge that most organizations face. Most organizations do not consider the website to be a platform for communication. This is something that should be taken into consideration when designing a website. The site should be developed so that it can be used to communicate important updates. Regarding this aspect, most websites do not act as a communication medium for the clients. They are not updated most of the time and the information they have are just basic information that do not add value to the organization. This is another important challenge that organizations should focus their efforts on. Current communications are based on the website content. With the availability of many websites, there is a need to take another step to enhance the information that is posted in a company website. Websites should be enhanced so that they are not merely a tool that is used to show that a company has online presence. Most company website does not have statements that show the financial standing and the strategic steps they have taken (Ganguly et al., 251).
There is also the lack of strategic partnership with other organizations to promote a cause and event. Most companies do not take this opportunity to be part of online events to promote their businesses. This is an opportunity that the company website can be marketed and promoted. Major online events have been unexploited because of the mindset where only offline events are exploited. Company websites have not been used to market the company. One challenge that has been seen to be of major concern is the security of the website. Most companies assume that the exposure of the company website will be the source of security challenges to the organization. Security has been a major issue of concern for many companies. The website has been taken to be a potential source of attacks to the company. This should be eradicated in the fight against cyber attacks (De Goede, Marije EE, Van Vianen, and Klehe 73).
Designing a website
When designing a website, there is a need to focus on the website as a whole and the strategic role it will play in the company. One of the important aspects that need to be considered when designing a website is the layout. The layout of the website is an important component that should be undertaken effectively. There should be the use of professional layout guides and styles. The layout will affect the feel and the way the clients will take the website. There should be the use of professional layout templates that have been analyzed and assessed by professionals. The website being an important face of the company, it is important to have a layout that is appealing and not a nuisance to the users (Miriam 83).
In the layout, an important aspect that is integrated to the layout is the navigation. There should be the right use of navigation lengths. The clients should find links that will help them navigate the web pages effectively. Most of the websites have poor navigations that make the clients face challenges while moving from one page to another one. Important pages should be made easy for the customers or potential customers to identify. Most websites have pages arranged in a clumsy manner such that it is hard for customers to navigate between sites.
The logos, headers, and footers are other important aspects of a website. The footers and headers should be organized so that they do not create nuisance in the website. They should be professional and portray meaningful and important information to the users. One example of footers is to have the vision of the company appearing in the footer. This will be a good opportunity to make users get aware of the vision of the company (Ji, Zhang, and Ren 271).
The current trends in website design and marketing is the use of search engine optimization techniques. This is a technique where the website comes top of most search engines when searching for companies. This strategy should be included while designing a website as this is a sure way to advertise a company. The company will come top when there is search that is done. Search engine optimization should be undertaken so when businesses that deal with the business of the company are search, the company will appear as the top in this line of business. This strategy has been one of the most successful in marketing.
Metadata is another strategy and component of website design. The organization of the data that describes data should be done in a strategic manner. Metadata is the data that describes data. This is important information that can market the company well if they are exploited. Some examples of the metadata are the date of modification, the author or file size. The use of this metadata will make searching and navigating easier. Users will make use of tags to navigate through a website. Metadata should be integrated in websites in order to make them easily found and drive potential customers to the website. This will increase the hits that the website will get in terms of the visitors who come to the website. The number of hits will show the popularity and the number of visitors who visit a given website. These are the strategies that can be used to market a website.
Works Cited
Alexander, Miriam. "Interactive user interface for collecting and processing nomenclature and placement metrics for website design." U.S. Patent No. 8,126,766. 28 Feb. 2012.
De Goede, Marije EE, Annelies EM Van Vianen, and Ute‐Christine Klehe. "Attracting applicants on the Web: PO fit, industry culture stereotypes, and website design." International Journal of Selection and Assessment 19.1 (2011): 51-61.
Ganguly, Boudhayan, Satya Bhusan Dash, Dianne Cyr, and Milena Head. "The effects of website design on purchase intention in online shopping: the mediating role of trust and the moderating role of culture." International Journal of Electronic Business 8.4 (2010): 302-330.
Ji, Xiaofen, Ying Zhang, and Xinting Ren. "Construct of Web-based Instructional Environment Based on Inter-subjectivity Fusing Cognition with Emotion–Taking the Website Design of the Quality Course Apparel Production and Management for Example." IERI Procedia 2 (2012): 234-240.
Sisson, Stephen D., Felicia Hill-Briggs, and David Levine. "How to improve medical education website design." BMC medical education 10.1 (2010): 30.
