Your website is a business tool and, as such, requires a business decision. Too many leaders want to abdicate responsibility in making decisions. CEOs will often defer critical decisions when they don’t understand what it all means. The single most important responsibility of a CEO is ensuring that the company has a coherent message that matches the right audience.

When creating any marketing piece, there are four distinct roles required. The mix for each of these four roles will vary depending on the requirement of the project. These roles are the marketing director, copywriter, artist and technical person (IT). If you are missing any of these skills on your team, then someone will have to take on double duty (this includes you). I highly recommend that you make sure that these skills are distinct from each other and outsource a skill completely if you need to.

You, as the CEO, are not included in this mix (yet). You are the visionary. You are the one that sets the objective. Your role in this mix will be made more clear when we start talking about Objectives, Strategies and Tactics in the next chapter.

Marketing Director

Next to the CEO, the marketing director has the most important role and must be in sync with the CEO’s vision. The marketing director is responsible for making sure that the message for the website matches the business requirements and fits properly with the company’s objectives. The marketing director should shield the CEO from elements that don’t require his help, while encouraging involvement with any elements (such as brand image) that require his input.

At the end of the marketing initiative, it is the message of the company that must be conveyed. No marketing initiative can be effective without someone skilled organizing every aspect. Most good marketing companies (Web or otherwise) will take on this role for the small business and will work in concert with on-staff marketing directors for large companies.

The marketing director is also responsible for design. When we talk about building the Web presence, we’ll explore what this means.

Copywriting

My experience has been that the content for any marketing initiative is truly the hardest part. You’ll find yourself in a bit of circular logic, because you’ll want to see the artwork so you can write the content, but you can’t complete the artwork until you have the content.

If you talk to most experienced Web developers, brochure creators, billboard designers and other commercial artists, you’ll find one key similarity among all: content precedes design. Your content is the most important part. It needs to stand alone, without the trappings of beautiful artwork.

Talented copywriters understand that your message is important no matter the picture. We say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but before a picture is ever created, there were 1,000 words used to describe it. It is your copywriter’s job to write the words for the artist to create the picture.

Artistic

Artwork means nothing without a message behind it. Any good presentation requires content that is meaningful and a visual representation to support the message. An experienced graphic designer will expect an equally qualified content writer to produce the message so that the artwork has meaning.

The challenge most CEOs and marketing directors have with the graphical side of Web marketing is the misconception that the designer should make all of the decisions on how the website will look. What they fail to understand is that, in the absence of a clear, strategic objective and well-thought-out content, the artist is required to make too many assumptions as to the intent of the marketing initiative. A talented artist needs ambiguity removed and specific guidelines as to what is expected in order to create a visual presentation that supports the objectives of the company.

Technical

It is easy for someone with limited Web marketing experience to assume that the technical support should make the decisions for how the CEO’s vision is translated to the Web. After all, the website is built on a server, using code that only technical people understand.

Today, website building tools are much easier than they used to be, and small businesses need limited technical support. More complicated Web applications and marketing initiatives require a more refined skill set.

As you define a strategic business direction, don’t worry about what coding language or server technology is used. The IT person’s role is to provide appropriate limitations to streamline the business decision for the CEO. If budgets are a concern, then the IT person needs to make sure that the CEO knows what should be left out. He or she must be ready to provide reasonable alternatives to give the CEO the best possible options.

Bottom Line

The hardest thing for any CEO is to delegate appropriate responsibilities. Usually, CEOs delegate the things they don’t want to do. Rather, you need to limit your decisions to setting objectives. You’ll want your marketing director to define the overarching strategy, while your copywriter, artist and technical person should define the appropriate tactics related to his or her function. Once you have defined the objective, each of the three key roles of copywriting, artistic and technical no longer report to you but to your “General,” the marketing director.

When trying to market yourself online, you have the ability to demonstrate yourself as a credible source. What's interesting is how many people and companies don't maximize this opportunity that Al Gore built for us online.

There are some key components that every website should contain. If your website doesn't include these elements, then you are missing out on opportunities.

What is especially amazing is how many web designers and marketers don't have these basic elements on their websites.

Phone Number Clearly Visible

For this, we'll make the assumption that you want to talk to your customers. Some companies have the business model that they don't like to talk to their customers. It's those same companies that invariably someone will complain about their lack of customer service.

If you want to sell things to your clients, you should have your phone number prominent and obvious. Make it easy for people to get a hold of you. Yes, people are utilizing chat, social media and email more and more, but most people still want to have a phone number.

Contact Page That Makes Sense

A contact page should also contain your phone number. Personally, I believe your contact page should also have your physical address. It adds credibility to your outfit.

I know that sometimes you want to work out of your home. But, let's face it, no matter how much play working remotely gets in the news, it's just not as professional. It causes a flicker of thought of, "Oh, you can't afford an office?"

If you don't have a physical address, you should at least get a virtual office and an address. It's a great place to meet your clients away from your home. It's okay to work out of your home but you should have an address away from home as a business location and a virtual office is a very inexpensive way to do that.

Incidentally, you should also meet your vendors at your virtual office. They are a great source of leads if they understand you are truly a professional.

About Page

I'm amazed how frequently I don't see an about page on a website. I want to do a little research about you. I want to understand your background. I want to know if you are a company or an individual.

Most people are okay with the fact that you might be a solo operator. People want to know who you are and how you do it. It becomes very disingenuous to try to hide or obscure your company history or makeup. If you pretend you are bigger than you really are then people will begin to wonder what else you are hiding.

Your about link doesn't have to be a prominent link in your main navigation but you should have a link so people can learn more about your company. They need to know you are real and not some fly by night operation.

The format of your about page can be a simple history and philosophy or can go so far as to include employee biographies. The more you give your prospective clients, the more you'll be able to connect with people in a real way.

Clear Call To Action

Oh, how often this is forgotten. When I come to your website, I want you to tell me what I should be doing there. I need to know what your expectation is for me. If you don't tell me then I won't do it.

The sales performance of your website should be considered the sales performance of a sales person. You should read my previous post, "How to Sell to Me," so that you can understand a little more what I mean. If you treat your website as a sales person and not a thing then you might do a little better building it.

Blog, Blog, Blog

You need to demonstrate your brilliance and ability. You do this by being active on your website with updated content. If you have a constantly changing product offering then this is less important. If your website would otherwise be pretty stagnant, an updated blog will make all the difference.

When your website doesn’t have a change in a very long time it signals to your clients that you don't care. You don't care about giving information that is helpful. You don't care about getting your message out. In turn, it means you may not be attentive to them.

Oh, and don't forget, when you blog often, you are also setting yourself up for long term search engine success.

Don't Be Embarrassed

I know that often times the goal is to try to portray something that you are not. If you are tiny, you want people to think you are bigger than you are. I can appreciate that to a certain extent. I understand that if you are starting your consulting practice or design agency that you might not be able to afford a staff to help you out.

Stop trying to hide behind the lack of appropriate content but instead, double down on being more visible. Yes, it might take more hours. It might be hard work. But, if you aren't going to put in the work on your website (or hire it out - like my agency) then you probably don't deserve to be in business because you will set up doubts in your prospective clients' minds as to your ability to do what you say you can do.

Be proud of who you are. Proclaim it on your website and make it easy for your clients and prospective clients to find you.

When you first get your new website, it's a momentous occasion. You'll usually expect bells and whistles mixed with a few fireworks by way of celebration. In fact, as you might expect, the entire world joins in one common thought of how wonderful you are and how fortunate you are to have accomplished a feat such as telling your server guys to flip the switch.

But, after the honeymoon of a new website launch wears thin... and even before you launch the website, there are a few things you need to be sure to take care of. One of the most important is checking for broken links.

Broken link checking can be a thorn in the side of many a web developer. You can think you have everything working but a change in one place can cause links to be broken in another. If you link to an external website and that sites has a change, your links will be broken.

As a result, before you go live and periodically after you go live, you'll want to check for broken links on your website.

Of course, you can just click through all the links on your website. If you have a small website, that may be a very reasonable activity. However, if you are active in blogging or have a lot of other content, that can become tiresome very quickly.

To ensure that your site is free of these broken links, use a tool that makes it easy. You can do a Google search and find a number of online resources but if you have a good content management system, you'll likely have logs of pages that people have tried to go to by are pages not found. Even Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource.

When you find a broken link, and you will, make sure to get it fixed right away.

One more thing to consider. One of the most common things to forget when building a website is how to handle it when there is a broken link or someone types in a wrong URL on your site and ends up at a page not found. Those are called 404 errors. These pages should be instructive and help your clients know what to do.

On my site, I have had a little fun with it. In fact, you can click on this link right here and see how I've done it. Just so you know, this link is intended to be broken. It doesn't work. Please don't email me and tell me that I have a broken link because I know it's broken. It's for demonstration purposes only.