Consulting Services
Our Consulting Services can get your web site off to a good start, evaluate its current position or even give it a plan for the future. We provide
clients with an unbiased approach to defining, developing and implementing solutions to meet their web site needs. Whether you have an existing web site or are just
starting out, we can provide you with the information and analysis you need to succeed online.We combine disciplines of business strategy, technology, and experience
to solve web site problems.
Types of Services:
- Website Design Consulting
- Website Usability Consulting
- Web Development Consulting
- E-Commerce Consulting
- Website Analysis
What We Analyze
Once we have a list of your competitors, we will draw up a list of items to analyze when we visit theirs and your website. Some of the categorized list of items are included below:
- Home page:
How informative is the home page? Does it set the proper context for visitors? Is it just an annoying splash page with multimedia? How fast does it load?
- Navigation:
Is the global navigation consistent from page to page? Do major sections have local navigation? Is it consistent?
- Site organization:
Is the site organization intuitive and easy to understand?
- Links and labels:
Are labels on section headers and content groupings easy to understand? Are links easy to distinguish from each other? Or are they ambiguous and uninformative ("click here" or "white paper")? Are links spread out in documents, or gathered conveniently in sidebars or other groupings?
- Search and search results:
Is the search engine easy to use? Are there basic and advanced search functions? What about search results? Are they organized and easy to understand? Do they give relevance weightings or provide context? Do the search results remind you what you searched for?
- Readability:
Is the font easy to read? Are line lengths acceptable? Is the site easy to scan, with chunked information, or is it just solid blocks of text?
- Performance:
Overall, do pages load slowly or quickly? Are graphics and applications like search and multimedia presentations optimized for easy Web viewing?
- Content:
Is their sufficient depth and breadth of content offerings? Does the content seem to match the mission of the organization and the needs of the audience? Is the site
developing its own content or syndicating other sources? Is there a good mix of in-depth material (detailed case studies, articles, and white papers) versus superficial content (press releases,
marketing copy)?
*Rating for each question on each site visited: 1=bad, 2=poor, 3=fair, 4=good, 5=outstanding.
Conducting The Analysis
1. we will visit one site at a time, and take the same (or at least, similar) paths through each site. Follow the checklist of criteria. 2. For each criterion, lots of notes
are taken. These notes are used to organize and write your report. 3. We try to give a score for each criterion as we complete them. This way we have scores for each major
category as well as for each site. 4. If the company that we're doing the analysis for has an existing site, then we will rate them last. After visiting the company's competitors,
this will give us some sense of objectivity. This also provides a good measurement comparison for the readers of your report.
The Written Report
- An executive summary, which contains a summary of our report. You'll probably write this section last. Subsections of the executive summary should include a section summarizing
why we undertook the analysis, a summary of the sites' rankings, and a summary of recommendations for further action.
- A methods section, in which you explain the methodology we employed for selecting and rating the sites, including what criteria we looked at. This section provides insight into
our thinking when we undertook the analysis.
- A findings section, in which we summarize our findings for each site. Start each subsection with the name of the site, the site's URL, and the overall score for the site. Then go through
each part of the site and describe how it ranked, including a site section score. Done for each site. The findings section will comprise the bulk of our report.
- A discussion & recommendations section, in which we provide future direction for the team. This is the appropriate section to mention integrating other sites' best practices to the site
being deployed by the company.
- One or more appendixes, in which we provide detailed information. It's appropriate to list raw data of our findings here.
