Company websites have been of limited strategic value in many industries locally. However, if the Internet were to become a basic service rather than a privilege, that would change. Consumer expectations would be such that practically no business would be able to survive without proper representation online.

But what mistakes are businesses currently making in getting online in preparation for this new New Age?

5. Poor content
While many websites are getting their acts together in terms of structure and design (the tiled cement background image seems finally to have died), content remains a problem area.

Content is tough. Unlike writing and printing a brochure, which can be compared to building a house - lots of work up-front and then it's done - a website is more like having a baby. The up-front work is the most fun bit. After that, it just gets more demanding and costly.

Most businesses do not employ writers, and although anyone can knock a basic English sentence together, there's a reason why professional writers exist. Making it the secretary's, marketing manager's or IT manager's job to keep the content on the site up to date is like asking the mailman to moonlight as a derivatives analyst.

The mistake: Companies build sites without thinking about how to keep them fresh. And those that do often assign responsibility poorly.
The solution: Either employ or contract professionals to keep your content updated. It might be painful to think that your site is like publishing a brochure daily, but that's the truth.

4. Usability cluelessness
If you put a navigation bar on the top or left of your page, people will find it. If you put it elsewhere, chances are they won't. That may seem obvious, but in fact site designers and clients alike routinely miss many such seemingly obvious details.

Failing to check a site with potential users before launch is a fatal mistake. Everyone - designer, programmer and client alike - will be too close to the site to notice how invisible that one green button is to an end-user.

Putting together a test group is routine in many other activities, from advertising to product development. Too often the way a website looks and how it works is left to the whims of a few marketing or IT people, along with enthusiastic graphic designers. This results in websites that not only look out of place, but also are frustrating and irritating.

For the best usability examples, look at the biggest sites on the Web - Google, Amazon, CNN. Ask yourself why it's so easy to use these sites. It's simple. The users dictate the usability. Amazon doesn't look the way it does because someone likes green more than yellow. It's because of sound usability principles, endless testing and feedback, and a relentless focus on making it easy for people to get things done.

The Web is not a brochure. It's a tool. It's more like a grill than an annual report - people don't really care what it looks like as long as it can cook a good steak.

The mistake: Allowing personal, or company, aesthetics to dictate site structure.
The solution: Listen to your users. If you don't know what they want, ask them.

3. Form before function
The rise of Macromedia Flash has perhaps been both the most important advancement in presentation on the Web, and its biggest shortcoming.

Simply put, the problem with a Flash file is that it's a big blob of data, locked in a binary prison. No search engine can interrogate the content it contains. No indexing tool can break its locks.

And that's not all - it's hard to print, copy-and-paste and change. Many companies have been wooed by the alluring animation and gloss that Flash offers. And, with recent versions of Flash, the rich GUI (graphical user interface) functionality that it delivers.

But for all its wonders, Flash is best left for animation and for Web applications that really do need very fancy GUI or GUI components. Using Flash for content presentation is a terrible mistake. There is many an excitable marketing manager who is right now discovering how costly and inflexible their stunning Flash website is.

The mistake: Letting pretty pictures be the priority in a medium where content is king.
The solution: Use Flash by all means for decorative or highly complex functional modules, but leave the content in HTML where it belongs.

2. No understanding of search engines
Search engines are the second most used Internet application after e-mail. South African search engines are out of step with global technology, and with the arrival of Google SA, the writing is on the wall for most of them.

Understanding how proper search engines work is a critical part of the Web today. The reason is simple: your potential customers aren't psychic. They can't guess your company's URL, so they need a search engine to find you.

Search engine optimisation prepares a website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. It influences how you structure your site, how you write your content and a whole range of other important decisions which directly affect the likelihood of your site, rather than your competitors' appearing at the top of the search results page.

Very few, if any, South African companies are currently optimising their sites to take advantage of the way search engines work. Even the simple act of buying search keywords on Google or Overture is obscure.

The mistake: Not realising that a website is of no real use if no one can find it, and not acting to make your site a strong contender on Google in particular.
The solution: Learn about or employ an expert to recommend an optimisation strategy for your site, and start getting into the search keyword "pay-per-click" game.

1. Lack of integration
Is your website a seamless part of your business? Does it reflect the company brand? Do you deal with queries from it in the same way that you do with calls into your call centre? Is its content in line with content on paper, in files and on your Intranet? Can your customers service themselves via the website?

This is part approach and mindset, part investment in technology such as content management systems, e-mail call centres and CRM systems.

In a country with poor bandwidth and high unemployment and poverty levels, integration has always been an issue. But the number of cellphone users in South Africa is growing at a rapid rate, and if Joburg Metro implements its plan to offer cheap wireless to everyone in the city, many companies are going to be ill prepared to engage digitally.

The mistake: Treating your website as a peripheral, rather than core, part of your business.
The solution: Don't make it more complicated than it has to be, but be ready to treat the Web as your most important channel.

An article published on http://www.biz-community.com