If you are a brick and mortar business and you have a website, you need some specific, easy-to-find things on your site:

WHO to contact for information.

WHAT goods/services you offer.

WHEN you are open.

WHERE you are located.

HOW to get in contact with you.

It doesn’t matter how cool your site looks.  Cool does not trump useful content.

See, that’s where a lot of people fall down.  They think, “Oh, yes, the Internet.  That’s the cool, hip, happening thing, right?  Better make a website that looks cool.”

I’m not gonna run down cool.  Cool is all nifty and groovy, really it is.  The problem comes in when you lose right of what the Internet is really for.  You see, what it’s really for is to convey information and make communication easier.  Any time your website fails at this, your website is failing at its job.  Fire it and get another.

Sometimes people have a web presence but don’t take it seriously because their client base is often word of mouth.  The attitude is understandable, but don’t underestimate how much more frequently the Internet is going to be the go-to place for information.  These days, it’s becoming increasingly common to plan travel, shop, choose what to do on a weekend, pick a movie, investigate a political candidate and even go to school online.  If your website does not include basic information about what you do and how to get to you, you’re losing out on a larger and larger customer base.

So, with that in mind, here are some basic rules for a website:

• If it won’t make the site more useful, you don’t need it.

The biggest offender here is music.  Look, I like Pachelbel’s Canon in D as much as anyone and probably more than most, but it doesn’t necessarily make me think your business is more sophisticated because you have it on your site.  In fact, I’m probably going to be annoyed at suddenly being confronted with music if I’m looking for a local restaurant.

• Content is King

The most important thing on any website is the information.  If you want search engines to be able to find it, make sure that you have textual content.  Not only that, make sure that you have textual content that reflects the keywords you think your customers will be using to search for your site.  There are professionals who can help you with how to write such content[1] if you’re unsure of how to go about it.

• If they can’t read it or can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.

Yes, the site should be visually appealing.  But that attractiveness should not detract from the necessary information on your site.  Does your color scheme have enough contrast for the text to be readable?  Have you tested this?  When testing your site, don’t use your sixteen year old check for readability.  You know her eyes are better than yours.  Get your mom to take a look, especially if she has an older computer than you do. If the site confuses her, your site is not yet useful enough.

• Let the experts expert.

For more detailed and technically oriented material, check out what the Red-Headed Snipe has to say about website design and usability.  Her blog is an excellent integration of “cool” and “useful”.

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1. Optimize for Mobile Devices: A Heartfelt Plea
2. Social Networking Over the Decades
3. Services