Okay, you could quibble that webpages have LONG since gone beyond html, and that’s very, very true.
But have you stopped to think about all the pieces, and all the different skillsets, that can go into making a webpage today?
Let’s take a look at the different skillsets that come into play…
1. Webmastering
Okay — this isn’t anything new. The webmaster is involved with getting your webpage up and working on your domain.
The webmaster will be concerned about user access issues, security issues and resource issues. A recent client has over 2G worth of downloads on one site.
Depending upon her hosting plan, she could have run out of bandwidth.
This would not look good, for potential clients to come to sales page and not be able to access it because you’ve run out of bandwidth.
It would be especially bad if you have affiliates that are sending pay-per-click traffic to the site and the site wasn’t available!
2. Copy
If you are going to sell something, or you want people to take action, some copy power is required.
Copy can be found on the salespage proper — but also in popup forms and in auto-responder sequences sent to the people who opt-in and to the people who buy.
3. Webdesign
That is, the layout of the page. This isn’t the same as graphics. A good Webdesigner should know something about css. Hopefully, a LOT about css (though a little can go a long, long way — depending upon which parts of css are used.) It helps if the webdesigner understands basic graphic design principles, though. But I know great graphic designers who know very little, if anything, about css.
Web layout gets more complicated because of differences in rendering that occur on different browsers. There are estimates that there are over 10,000 different browsers out there!
The webdesigner needs to coordinate with the providers of the other parts of the sales page, to get all the pieces put together.
Sometimes the copywriter might be providing the webdesign services; sometimes a graphic designer. Most copywriters will definitely want a say in how the webpage looks, though — even if they are simply providing “words”. Frequently, copywriters provide their words in “mock up” in something like Word, so the essential fonts & formatting are communicated.
4. Graphic design
These are the people who make your ecovers header graphics, buy buttons & logos.
5. Software
What are all the pieces of software that you might find on a sales page?
Four come immediately to mind:
- The buy button (even if the software isn’t directly on the sales page…there’s got to be software on the other end of the buy button.)
- The opt-in form. Again — even if the software isn’t directly on the sales page, there’s got to be software at the “receiving end” of the opt-in form.
- Tracking software — such as google analytics
- Popup software — either entry or exit — having popup software which interacts with the user to encourage them to sign up on your opt-in form.
Are there others? Sure. But those are the essentials.
Interactivity in websites is a huge issue, all made possible via software.
(What other kinds of software? Well, what about surveys?)
5. Multimedia
For all your pictures, audio, video and more!
How do you put up the audio? What are the constraints? Do you make the audio downloadable, or streaming?
How do you put up video? What kind of format?
What about Flash?
And we can go on…
6. Legal & Other Important stuff
Privacy policies, earnings disclaimers, “about us”, helpdesk links, Terms of Service — all part of what needs to be on your page.
7. Quality Assurance
You need to make sure your page works at a variety of levels.
Most important to you, you need to make sure that the opt-in forms & the buy button work! But it also includes proof-reading and design testing — testing the design to make sure that it works on the majority of browsers that your prospects use.
8. Project Management
With all these pieces, someone needs to coordinate things. That would be a project manager. Most merchants are going to be doing this themselves — if they have the knowledge. Otherwise, someone doing one of the other tasks will need to do it, simply in order to get their piece done.
A good project manager is going to understand how all the pieces fit together and what the timeline is, who the players are and what they are responsible for.
They basically know, as it’s called in engineering, the “gozintas & the gozoutas” — that is, what are the things coming out and what will be the end result.
So…if you are embarking on putting your business online…or you have a website and want to bring yourself up-to-date — these are all things you should consider!
As the web grows up and becomes more and more sophisticated, so do all the aspects that need to be considered.
Tags: project management, quality assurance, web page production, web page project management
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