[04.20.10]

What is a website, really? Is it an online store front, a communications tool, or just advertising for your business? How about not limiting your thinking about sites to one of these? In essence a business website is all three and maybe more.

The best description I've heard of a website came from a conversation Paul and I were having a little while ago. He was leafing through a magazine and told me he thinks the same way about sites as he does about good printed magazines.

1. A magazine's cover tells you instantly what kind of magazine it is.

Regardless of the type of magazine it is, it will "flavor" its cover to attract the right kind of customer. It knows who it is targeting and, with that in mind, its editors carefully choose the font type, the layout and the images and words. They also make sure you don't mistake their magazine for ones they're competing with. Cosmopolitan differentiates itself from Glamour in various ways and will always stay on brand. Your website's home page can change its content frequently and refresh its images, but if you move away from your brand and goals, you will confuse customers and lose them. You also want to stay unique, don't just do what everyone else is doing.

2. Magazines have compelling images on the cover.

The design of a magazine's cover is deliberate. It is intended to draw a casual shopper's eye with intriguing images that make them stop and pick it up. Similar to a book cover, a magazine cover is the first thing a reader or shopper sees. This is how we should also think about a website's home page. What would compel a shopper to stop in and stay a while, leaf through the pages, see if it offers anything interesting?

3. Magazines put "teasers" on the cover.

In addition to nice images, a magazine always offers some content on its cover that gives the reader a flavor of what they can expect if they decide to open it. Most magazines use words like "sexy," "the best tips for…," "check out the new…," "how to…." you fill in the blanks. Potential readers will know that the articles will give them information they've hopefully not known before. A business site can provide the same compelling content using short phrases and a reason to click deeper.

4. Magazines deliver on their cover's promise.

A site is only as valuable as the information, services or products it provides. In magazines these all reside in the interior pages, similar to a website. A magazine has multiple purposes: to advertise products, recruit subscribers, and offer valuable information. A business website often has all three of these purposes and more. Ultimately the goal is the gain followers and make money. How a site does that depends on the type of business it is. But if a site fails to deliver on the promise of its home page's initial promise, then it will not retain the customers it was trying to reach. Your site should give your customers exactly what they want (and it wouldn't hurt to throw in a bonus).