Does Your Web Site Make the Grade?

Most incubation professionals know a Web site can be a great promotional tool, providing clients, local entrepreneurs, community leaders, sponsors and others with vital program information. But simply establishing a Web site isn’t enough. It’s important to ensure that your site actually does its intended job – that it reaches your target audience with useful information, and, ultimately, helps sustain interest in your incubation program. To help determine the effectiveness of your incubator’s Web site, you may want to ask yourself the following questions.

How Up-to-Date Is My Web Site?

Perhaps the most common mistake incubation programs make is putting up a Web site and letting it stagnate. It's like publishing an issue of a magazine and expecting it to sell for three years. If six months or more pass with no changes, visitors to your site may assume that nothing important is happening at your incubator.

It’s a good idea to update Web content at least once a month. This doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. If crucial information about incubator services, admissions policies and other key elements is up-to-date, then monthly updates can simply include posting new incubator and client press releases or adding a current list of small business events taking place at the incubator and in the community.

Is My Web Site More Than Just a Pretty Face?

Placing an emphasis on appearance over content is another pitfall to avoid. Sure, you can hire a Web site designer to make your site look snazzy, but content should always be your first priority.

The first step in creating content is clarifying what you want your site to accomplish. Who is your intended audience? Who visits the site? What information are they looking for? It sounds simple, yet many incubation programs never work out these fundamentals.

Content will vary depending on an incubator’s mission and focus, but some common elements of incubator Web sites include:

• the incubator’s mission statement
• a description of the incubator’s services
• client admission guidelines and application instructions
• economic impact data
• a list of current and graduate clients
• incubator and client press releases
• a list of local small business events, networking opportunities, seminars and venture forums
• incubator contact information

Can Visitors Find the Information They Seek?

The greatest content in the world loses value quickly if visitors can’t find it. To be effective, Web sites must be well-organized and intuitive to navigate.

Jared M. Spool, founding principal of User Interface Engineering, wrote Website Usability, A Designer's Guide (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1999), an informative book for almost any Web designer. It reveals which design features work and which ones fail when users try to retrieve information.

Two of the Web sites included in Spool's study were Disney and Edmund’s New Car Guide. Disney, which was expected to finish near the top, actually finished last in the study. Edmund’s, a site lacking fancy graphics or clever features, came in first.

Why? Users experienced a high level of frustration when trying to find information in the Disney site. “How well the user can predict where the link will lead and how well the user can differentiate one link from another help users navigate a site more effectively,” Spool says.

Evaluating how visitors are using your site isn’t too difficult. Your Internet service provider almost certainly will put Web traffic analysis capabilities at your Webmaster's fingertips. If not, invest in an off-the-shelf traffic analyzer. You should be able to find how many “hits” (visitors) your site receives, the time spent on each page and a host of other enlightening user facts.

Armed with this information, you’ll learn a lot. For example, you may have designed a page containing information you think prospective clients would really find useful, yet it is one of the least visited pages on your site. More than likely, it’s time to reassess your audience’s needs or the accessibility of the information.

Final Thoughts on Web Design

When it comes to Web sites, frequent, small changes are better than occasional, sweeping redesigns. If you keep fresh, useful information coming, the time and money you spend updating your site will convert into tangible value for your incubation program.

This was adapted from an NBIA Review article originally published in October 1999, What's Wrong With My Web Site?, by Tracy Corrigan.