b2b internet marketing

What type is your web site?

Today, more than ever, there are a number of different products and strategies available for getting your Web content development and production processes streamlined and under control.
Every Web site is unique in its production process, unique in its content, unique in its value to the sponsoring business - sometimes it is the entire business. For this reason, every Web CMS solution will, to a certain extent, be a custom solution. Still, there are three basic issues any business should explore when beginning the search for a Web content management system:

• Type of Web Site
• Web specification
• Level of Business Commitment to the Web

Type of Web Site
Corporate portals - entire presentation of the organization, web applications and services
Communities - interactive center for communities with common activity and inerests
Media & News sites - dynamic presentation of actual information from media and publishing houses
Project management - web content management and project deployment
Intranet/Extranet - collaboration, support and exchange of information between the teams

If, at first glance, it appears that you have more than one of the types of sites listed above, you need to do a little research to determine your site’s primary business driver. Frequently, the Web team doesn’t know what the site’s primary business driver is. It is very easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day activities of a site. Correctly determining your type of site is important because each site type has a different production dynamic. Different production dynamics require different production and content management strategies.

Web specification
Your Web specification is the state of affairs of your Web site. It should be expressed in a report that contains, at the very least, the following:

• Business goals and type of the project
• Audience, clients
• Language and technical versions
• Structure and size of the web site
• Applications, functionality
• Hosting & support

This report is a key piece of information to have before you begin speaking to Web CMS vendors. Not all Web CMS can solve all Web production problems. If you do not understand your Web specification, then the vendor will impose one upon you in order to sell their product. You’ll find out too late that you don’t work the way they said you do.

Level of Business Commitment to the Web
How important is your Web site to your business’ bottom line? Your business probably falls into one of the following categories:

• DotCom – A Web company that gets almost all of its revenue from selling goods and/or services via the Web.
• Clicks and Bricks – Generally a company that was around pre-commercial Web but which also has a strong business commitment to the Web.
• Vanity – A company that has a Web site because they think they ought to, but they are not sure how they want to utilize the Web in order to increase revenue or provide services.

As much as the Web team would like to argue against it, the selection of a Web content management system is not just about the technology. It’s also about dollars and cents. As it relates to Web CMS product selection, the level of a business’ commitment to the Web will be most strongly reflected in the amount of money that your business is willing to spend on the Web CMS. If the company’s Web site is a vanity site, which does nothing to increase the profits of the business, then they probably aren’t going to want to invest 600K – 1M in a Web content management system - no matter how good the technology fit or how many problems it solves. A Web content management system should have a strong and positive effect on the day-to-day work lives of your Web production team and Web content creators. Taking the time necessary to understand these three areas will ensure that your Web CMS product selection will result in a product that solves your existing Web content management problems instead of creating new ones.

 CMS

 Do you need a CMS?

 Choosing a CMS