XSite Pro (thewomaninwhite.info) Day 1.
Web Master’s Log: Supplemental
Despite my lengthy perambulatory walk today, and then taking some time to reply to correspondence I have made some progress with thewomaninwhite.info.
For a start I’ve taken some decisions about how I will recoup the investment of my time and labour?
Too many people approach me to build web sites with little idea of either what they want, or what is required to adequately structure a commercial site.
They want to sell something which in all probability few wish to buy, yet they think placing it on the Internet will solve their commercial problems.
I already know that people search for ‘The Woman In White‘, especially at the moment because Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version recently opened on Broadway.
But people also search for the book, as well as critiques and academic material. So applying virtually everything that I’ve learned about Internet marketing I will rapidly be building pages and products to serve this committed audience.
Today thewomaninwhite.info might not look like an award winning web site. This is because I am learning how to most efficiently use subdirectories within XSite Pro, and build links to them. Indeed it’s not just one XSite Pro website that I am building, but a series of sites, linked by a master site.
But in the next two, or three, days the look and feel of the web site will change dramatically.
It’s essential to get the architecture of the site directories and ordering systems in order. Naturally I will offer people the opportunity to purchase from Amazon. Since the market is the entire English speaking peoples of the world I have sourced Woman In White products at all three of Amazon’s English language web sites.
For this reason today I built three very simple pages which will enable people to find ‘The Woman In White’ products at the Amazon web site most relevant to them. Great care had to be taken in choosing the links from the Amazon web sites. For example someone panned the film version at Amazon.co.uk, and although most people agree with me that, although not adhering strictly to the content of the book, the film is captivating, I didn’t want potential customers to land on that page. With a little ingenuity I was able to find an alternative, which is justifiably full of rave reviews.
Now that these pages are built, I’ve created a subdirectory for them. At the moment they are accessible from the Site’s home page, but in future they will be connected to graphic advertisements that will appear on some of the pages.
It may not seem much to show for a few hours work, but planning at this stage plays dividends in enabling a web site to run efficiently with the minimum of maintenance. And really there’s no substitute for testing everything stage-by-stage.
