There is a crucial reality that’s too easily ignored in developing a web site. A site is not simply another form of conduit. It’s a medium with its own distinctive characteristics. It conveys information in unique ways, and has a different quality of impact. In just a few short years, the web site has become a major tool of corporate communication.

The internet allows a user to log on to your site for a full array of information, from the latest financials to the latest company news to a dis- cussion of management and a list of products. Analysts and other investors routinely check the Web sites of hundreds of companies in which they might invest or that they might recommend, usually as a first step in looking at a company.

The proliferation of authoring programs, such as Dreamweaver and Microsoft Front Page, and of easy graphic design applications, make producing and getting a site online a relative cinch. Almost anybody can do it, which accounts for the burgeoning of blogs—personal web sites that usually contain a consistent core message. It also accounts for a lot of dreary and inept web sites, where professionalism is most demanded. Unfortunately, not every site contributes much more than static and noise for the eye and mind.

The web site of any quality, one that best represents a company, is best designed and managed by a professional. If the site is used for commerce, there are E-commerce specialists. There are some great sites online. Sites that understand why they are there, and what they are meant to accomplish. What are the differences? What are the pitfalls, and what are the ways to best take advantage of the new medium?

Perhaps the most important difference between a web site and the printed page, and the one that should most affect the site’s design, is that a web site is dynamic, and the printed page is not. Information can be changed and updated virtually in real time. The printed page freezes the information until the next printing. The limits of a brochure, an annual report, or other printed material, then, are its size and number of pages. The limits of a web site, including both internal and external links, can be virtually infinite.

Just the ability to link to other pages makes a site a significantly different medium. The printed document may describe a company and its finances, but it’s a static description. Pages are generally turned sequentially, like a book. A good web site allows a reader to jump to the information that’s most immediate—most valuable—and back again to a home page. This is an extraordinary power in managing and conveying information. The differences between a web site and other media in the way that messages are conveyed are distinctive and important to realize.

• Just the look of the word or image on a page is different on a computer screen. You can control the look of the printed page, but you can’t always control the look of that same information on a computer screen. Different internet browsers show the same images differently.

• The clarity of the image is rarely as good as it is on the printed page. Allowances must be made for these differences in designing a site. Some type faces are more readable than others, for example.

• The use of color is free on the computer. Add color to the printed page and your costs go up dramatically.

• Dynamic motion—images that move—are a major factor on the web site, and obviously, not on the printed page. These devices are relatively easy to put on sites, and if used tastefully, add to the interest and attraction. (But they can also slow down loading time).

• The content, look, design, and colors of a site can be changed at will. Obviously not so in other media. (This is both an opportunity to be creative, and a prospective pitfall that can subvert the message by overwhelming it).

• It’s true that many of the elements of a web site can be found in other media. Film and television have color and motion, but at far greater cost. Newspapers change content daily, but a web site can change content in a moment. The amount of text and illustration is limited by the format of other media, but the only limit in a web site is the ability to sustain attention and interest.

These qualities suggest that the site must be designed by someone who really understands the medium, and not just the graphics or content. Designing a web site is a special skill, requiring a greater sense of communication in several dimensions. In fact, it often takes two different professionals, with two different skill sets, to do it right—the communicator, who knows how to get the best out of the medium, and the technician, who knows how to make it happen. A web site, it must be remembered, is ultimately a communications medium—not merely a technical device.

What, then, are some of the major considerations in producing a successful and valuable web site?

• There’s an easy tendency to misunderstand objectives. Or more accurately, expectations. What do you want the site to do? What can you reasonably expect from it? Name recognition? A display of your firm’s skills and capabilities? A demonstration of your firm’s breadth and scope? Its growth potential? Your firm’s industry and your place in that industry? What do you want people to know, think, or feel after they’ve looked at the site? Without a clear view of objectives for your site, it’s impossible to design a site that can accomplish those objectives.

• Given the relative ease with which web site images can be produced, it’s easy to allow the design to overwhelm the message. No matter how elaborate the design, including color and graphics, it should let the message do its work. Design should support the message and the site, not dominate them. Here, artfulness counts. Complex graphics may look great, but may take so long to load that viewers quickly move on to other sites.

• You may have the most attractive site on the internet, but if there’s no reason for people to revisit your site frequently, your objectives for it will rarely be achieved. Repetition is impact, as every marketing professional knows. The competition for attention to any one site is overwhelming. Competition for the viewer’s attention is fought with a combination of technical skill and artistry (but don’t confuse one with the other—they’re two different things).

• Think of the difference between sitting straight in a chair in front of a computer screen, and relaxing in an easy chair, reading a brochure. If you want your viewer to get your message onscreen, it has to be easily readable, and worth reading. If you can’t sustain interest in large blocks of text, with a message that’s interesting and important, then stick to short messages.

• Everybody knows how to read printed text, but not everybody is computer literate. Make sure your site is useable and navigable by the least sophisticated person you want to reach.

• Check your mechanics and links. Make sure your site is accessible to all major browsers (different browsers see code differently) and to major search engines. Keep an eye on loading time. Double check links.

• Today’s news gets stale very quickly on a web site. Change content as often as possible. Give the viewers a reason to keep coming back, and to stay on your site for as long as possible. This is why a firm’s web site shouldn’t be simply a download of its brochure.

A good site is an art form, not only in its graphics, but in the professionalism of it ability to convey a message in ways that meet your objective. That’s why what makes it so hard is that it’s so easy.