I read Web Design Marketing Solutions for Business Websites last week and here is my review of the book.
The book is a summary of list of techniques and details that goes into creating a full-fledged business website for an enterprise. It is a book that is a useful reference to check if you have covered your bases with respect to all aspects of your website and as a starting point to doing more with your website. It is not the holy bible of business websites though.
It is written by the creator of GraphicPush: Kevin Potts - which is why it seems to focus a lot on the building of the website rather than on making the website thrive in the face of competition and keeping the website alive.
The Good
There are some good tips on creating a corporate blog such as:
- Blog about information directly related to the company.
- Blog about information related to the writers of the blog.
- Write about the industry the company is in.
It also mentions some good blogging policies:
- Respond to feedback
- Never delete a comment unless it violates the commenting policy
- Never write anything knowingly false
- Always double check accuracy and spelling.
- Provide a link to any cited webpage or document.
The book also covers different kinds of pages that can validate your claims about a product or service, such as:
- Press Releases
- Case Studies
- Reviews
- Testimonials
- Awards and Recognition
- Customer List
The book talks about how to obtain case studies/testimonials from customers with tips on how to write press releases and generate the customer list.
The Bad
I found the sections on online advertising and marketing very lacking. There are lots of advertising techniques like roadblocks, paid ads, text ads, sponsored reviews. But these are covered very vaguely in the section.
The Use of social media is also not covered. I must agree this book must have come out before social media became such a big deal. Perhaps, newer editions of the book will cover it.
In Summary
This is a good book for beginners who are looking to redesign, or create from scratch, a business website, but you need to look beyond this book for learning anything in-depth about running a business website.
I am looking forward to reading Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions and Web Analytics: An Hour a Day to learn more about the business side of running a website.