When is technology to be used?

It's a very common mistake.

One of the most common mistakes made on the Internet is producing and displaying the technological wizardry site. Programmers love to make these. We have seen a lot of sites designed just this way. We have seen them done even by those that are hired as a professional and should know better. With the advent of many html editors, people without Internet business design experience are able to add JavaScript, Java, Marquees, and more with relative ease. Yet, after all the bells and whistles are in, after the magic six to eight months of poor web site visitation and results, the web site owner becomes concerned.

Make no mistake, the Internet is technology based. However, business success on the Internet is a mixture of that technology and business practice. Do you like a commercial on TV that the screen is flashing brightly over and over? Many of us actually turn them off. It is purely due to convenience that we don't. Yet on the Internet, the convenience is to change and it is inconvenient to wait for it all to load. Statistically, 80-percent of people leave a site if it takes more than 40-seconds to download. Sometimes, that kind of download is necessary. For that case, there is a way to pre-qualify the visitor so they will wait, but it relies on the other web page that does not take that kind of time.

When is it right?

Are you selling technology and is that your business basis? If so, displaying high level technology may be appropriate for you. But never all at once. It makes the site way too busy and distracts people. One thing at a time is the key. In a technology centered site, the user probably has high tech equipment that is loaded with enough of the latest equipment and software that they can view it.

If the business is not technology based, why have a technology loaded site. Most potential customers use equipment that they have had a while or recently got something like WebTV. They often prefer their older browser and may not like the download and other problems associated with the latest browsers. Some people have been avoiding the Windows 98 browser and downloading the older version of Netscape (3.05 is very nice and still available). Are you willing to discount and ignore as many as 40-percent of your potential customers? That is what you do if you allow your site to be designed for only the latest browsers.

Technology based real-life example. A group of computer game players wanted a professional web site. They love technology and have the latest equipment, as much as they can afford, so that they can better play the games. They have mainly high speed access lines to the Internet. Many have paid for this at the homes. A web site with multiple framing, less professional business background attention, lots of graphics, JavaScript, Java, and some marquees are appropriate. Add some VIRML, active movies, music, and so on. They love it. It is successful, and it takes up copious throughput on the server. They are willing and desirous of paying this price, thus technology without going overboard on any given page, is highly appropriate. Many of their customers are programmers. A less technological site would not be popular or successful. They change it constantly and it is always "under construction."

Non-technology based company real life example.  At the request of the web site owner, we recently examined a site that was not producing results for the owner. It had everything imaginable on the home page. The business of the company is painting commercial and residential properties. The site did not say this well and actually distracted the visitor. Further, its download times were so poor that not even we, with our high speed access lines, wanted to stay. No wonder then that the potential customer did not stay. Their site was driving them away. Have a web site did help them, but produced a poor impression. Our advise? Remove the technology, optimize the graphics, enhance the message you want to portray, and install a business level professional background.

Technology based company real life example. Even businesses selling technology is often better served by a low technology site. For example, a computer store is selling equipment and supplies, not programming technology. Expending resources on a database and shopping cart system is what will pay off for them. The only spot they should have the higher level of technology is the demo site of that "great" web site editor that can do it all. Want proof? A company recently decided that they wanted a high level graphic that had lots of movement. We advised for a less intense but moving graphic. It is their site and they chose to have the graphic logo as they originally wanted. We did it and it cost them an additional $200 to get it. The graphic work was relatively intense and involved many hours of work and optimization to limit the download time as much as we could. After it was installed, site visitation dropped off from the previous successful levels. After a month of this, we helped them look at their visitation statistics. They made the choice to go with our recommended moving logo and a small version of their previous logo on most other pages. Visitation went back up and began to increase again.

Demonstrations of the programming.

We can program your site in any language and technology based format you would like. However, we offer some of these demonstrations to show how it is optimally done.

Dynamic html. This page has a minor amount of dynamic html. We have used a small amount of this type of coding to make the visit more enjoyable by the Internet Explorer 4.x people. However, the pages are still designed to display properly on over 98-percent of other browsers too. We made sure to not exclude them. That makes it a less dynamic than we would like to have done, but still allows everyone else in the door too. If they don't have it, they never know it was there. By this process, we don't need to maintain two or more sets of pages with similar or identical information on them. That costs money. If you do, it is no problem, that can be handled. It just costs three times as much as a single page that is compatible.

JavaScript. For demonstration purposes and visual enjoyment each of the pages in our support section has highly browser compatible JavaScript buttons on it. A non-JavaScript version is available too. The only problem with these options is that you do exclude some visitors. However, if managed properly, they never know that they missed it. Unless it is necessary to its performance, never allow someone to make JavaScript a requirement for the visitor. If you do, give a non-JavaScript option.

Java. Java is nice, allows you to run on almost any platform, is very stable, has been around a long time, and would appear to be the solution for getting lots of lively pages. So why not use them. Why do we, in almost all cases, advise removing the Java from pages we redesign or take over maintenance for? Download time. In short, it takes way too much time to download even the simplest task. Examine the active Java buttons on this demo page. They are nice. However, it is the same information and a non-Java page and it takes twice as long to get it. Further, search engines, which are the major way your page gets know to the world, wont recognize the Java links. All this, for a button that lights up in almost any platform. Until 90-percent of the people on the Internet get high speed access, we advise avoiding it unless you pre-qualify, or can demonstrate a great reason for its presence. Not that it is impossible to get a 10-second download on the Java page and it is on the non-Java page.

A little advertising about us and our approach

The technical details. We are a virtual domain site that serves as a Host Provider only. OfficeOnWeb's job is to host and support the web portion of the businesses that rent space within OfficeOnWeb. The OfficeOnWeb address is more stable as it conveys the purpose of the business. The spaces within the site are referred to as suites and addressed in a form that allows computers and people alike to remember. They don't change every time a business moves in and that adds to the stability. While we think we have made the best server choices, we have minimize the risk of server problems for OfficeOnWeb and its tenants. If the physical server that OfficeOnWeb uses ever became a problem, we could change to another physical server anywhere in the world without affecting hosted businesses in the suites.

Superior service. Ever site designed by us is supported. We help the businesses succeed. We don't claim to be the cheapest when you get bids. But we usually are the cheapest in the long run. Our advice and avoidance of problems save our customers money many times over. We have often lessened the price for the customer, which would have been money in our pocket, by advising against doing things that would not pay. Further, when you add up what you will find that you really need, after you gain experience, you will find that we actually were much less expensive than the others. See what our customers say.

We don't make guarantees that we cannot support. No one can guarantee a listing on Yahoo or in the top ten on any browser. They can claim it, but none can actually deliver it. We know, we have tried many times over to reach these goals and would make the claim if we could. If you have a site that has 4 million other pages on the net with similar information. It is remarkable that we are able to get you in the first thirty. Often we do. But again, we cannot guarantee it. We have others that we can not produce that level of visibility for the customer and we really wanted too.

Sites maintained by us almost always save the customer much more money than first assumed. For example, we had a customer who obtained a "turnkey" site has taken over their own maintenance and development. They disconnected their site from the ordering capability. They had hundreds of visitors, many which may have wanted to order, and were not able to for more than a month. Finally, one wanted the product enough to call. At 10 p.m. they used our special customer support response capability to come and resolve the problem. One hour later, the problem had been found, corrected, and advice on how to avoid the problem happening in the future was offered. The cost for the repair was $50. The amount of lost sales is unknown. The cost to have use maintain it and avoid the problem would have been about $50 per month and would had saved the owner tens of hours of their own time in trying to change and resolve technical problems in one month alone.

Flexibility. In addition to the flexibility of changing servers, ISP's and the other factors mentioned, OfficeOnWeb offers one more benefit that no else can. Every business has the potential to grow so large that it needs its own "building". Should your web site business grow to the point that your own virtual server is a good choice for the business, you can make the transition without damaging your existing investment. The virtual site of the business can be mirrored ( it a copy) as a suite in OfficeOnWeb. That way you retain the benefits of the mall traffic while obtaining the independence of a virtual site. When the virtual site space is rented from OfficeOnWeb, in most cases, there is no additional charge for this service.

ISP service details. We have cooperative agreements to provide dial-in type access for our customers, with added benefits and at a discount, for the area that we expect will be the source of the majority of our customers. This way we avoid the problems of being an Internet Service Provider, don't need to impose its communication restrictions, and can provide business serves at a lower cost and with more responsiveness. (After all, it you obtain business host services with an ISP and their communication line stops working, fixing that is, by necessity, their first priority. If your business web site needs to be changed, corrected, or anything else, it cannot be tended to until the communication crisis is over.) Again, this allows everyone some flexibility and security. While a tenant would lose some added benefits we have obtained for OfficeOnWeb customers, no one is obligated to use the ISP we selected. In the unlikely event the ISP service became unacceptable, a new ISP could be selected with little to no change for the tenant businesses. All OfficeOnWeb tenant mail addresses are stable. They forward to any ISP the tenant chooses. Thus the web site portion of the business stays stable to those in contact with you.