You may have heard the ad on the radio: “…This is the house that Macbuilt”. Well, here is the website that we built!

Featuring a thumbnail gallery of some of their designs, the website is geared around providing useful information to people looking to build a new home. It includes a detailed Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to dispel some common myths about steel framed homes, and the website is peppered with links for people seeking more information.

From a technical standpoint, this is our first website using our new self-identifying navigation function. What does that mean? Notice that the links in the navigation section don’t work when you’re on that page. And to emphasis the point, the current page has a black bullet instead of the standard blue.

Why is it important? Usability expert Jakob Neilsen states:

10. Don’t include an active link to the homepage on the homepage

This is a special case of a guideline that applies to all website or intranet pages: never have a link that points to the current page. (A button to refresh stock quotes or other changing information is a different matter, and should be presented as a command button rather than a navigation link since it doesn’t lead to a new location.) Active links to current pages cause three problems:

* If they click it, a link leading to the current page is an utter waste of users’ time.
* Worse, such links cause users to doubt whether they’re really at the location they think they’re at.
* Worst of all, if users do follow these no-op links they’ll be confused as to their new location, particularly if the page is scrolled back to the top.

Homepage links on the homepage typically result from using a universal navigation bar that includes “home” as an option. Fine. But when users are on a page that’s featured in the navbar, you should turn off that option’s link and highlight it in such as way that indicates that it’s the current location.

We’ve started our 5th year of association with Rockhampton Basketball by launching a new website at www.rockybasketball.com.

In addition to being able to upload draws for the local junior and senior competitions (which they have been able to do for a few years now), Rockhampton Basketball can now update their home page with the latest news, results and events.

And fans can be a part of it too, as they can add their comments at the bottom of each story.

Now we just need to wait for the season to start!

Microsoft has released “critical” updates for users running most versions of Windows. From their website:

“The Windows security updates for January 2005 include several important updates for Microsoft Windows and some installations of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, a component of Windows. If you have any of the software listed on this page installed on your computer, you should visit the Windows Update Web site to install related updates.

Visit their security bulleting for more information.

Think about your website in terms of a marketing exercise, not an IT exercise. It is, after all, a promotional/marketing/advertising tool. The technology doesn’t matter. If you were placing a newspaper ad, would you put it in the hands of a company that manufactures paper? Of course not!

A website is quite different from marketing via traditional media though.

• With TV, you’ve tuned in to watch a show - the ads interrupt that show
• With radio, you’ve listening to the music or talkback - ads interrupt what you’re actually listening to
• With newspapers and magazines, you buy them for articles/news/stories, and ads are placed around them hoping to catch your attention

If a client (or potential client) visits your website - it is their destination, not a something else that happens to be at their destination. Your website doesn’t suddenly appear whilst they’re doing their online banking or checking sport results. They have chosen to visit you. The same can’t be said for other forms of advertising.

Knowing that someone has chosen to visit your website, what are you going to offer them? The same old corporate “yada yada”? Is that what potential clients really want?

The most important thing you can do here is put yourself in their shoes. It’s also one of the hardest, as it’s easy to assume people know the same things about your industry that you know. This is usually not the case!

So how do you make a website a “destination”?

Each business is different, and every website is different, but in general terms you should think about the following:

1. Provide news or articles that help people understand your products or services better.
2. If you often get asked the same sort of questions, include answers to those questions on your website.
3. If you’re selling a physical product, provide photos - good photos that show detail.
4. If you’re selling something that has a strong emotional hook, offer something that the visitor can download and keep. Wallpapers or screensavers are good examples.
5. Provide calculators or other online tools that make a visit to your site really useful.
6. Ask for your visitor’s email address and send them a regular newsletter
7. And give visitors an easy way to interact with the website!

These are just a few general examples - our challenge is to find something that your clients or prospects will find useful, and then tell their friends and colleagues about. But it’s fairly safe to say that the days of just having a “web presence” are virtually over.

Your competitors probably have “a presence”.

How are you going to stay in front?

What you’re now reading is known as a “blog”, which is short for “weblog”. Basically it’s a method of publishing news on your website on a regular basis. You simply log in, type your post, and click “Publish” - it’s that simple.

Here’s more good news - search engines like blogs.

An example from this website: After Anna Mears won her gold medal at the Athens Olympics, I posted this short note of congratulations. Within days I was recieving a lot of traffic courtesy of people searching Google for “Anna Mears”. Within days. And even now, I still rank Number one:

The reasons why are outlined in the link above - but whatever the reasons, I can vouch for the result!

Do you have news you could share with clients on a reasonably regular basis? Maybe you could benefit from a blog too. It can be integrated with your existing website, and we can also use it to form the basis of an email newsletter.

Sharing your news with clients has never been easier!