Firms' Mad Rush to the Net

By Bill Fick

For companies worldwide, staking turf in cyberspace with a World Wide Web homepage has become something of an existential requirement. To be or not to be: if you're not on the Net, do you really exist?

The Internet foray of Gazprom (http://www.gazprom.com), the Russian energy giant, seems driven by precisely this metaphysical imperative, with zero consideration of how actually to use the medium rationally. The "minimalist" (read: pitiful) Gazprom page, static for several months already, consists of a small yellow roadsign with a man shoveling something (use your imagination) followed by the text: "Fax any enquiries to (852) 2545-9845". Gazprom is still around, on course for the 21^st Century, and has a fax machine somewhere in Tyumenskaya Oblast. Whew! I was worried for a minute this winter when the heat in my apartment started to fade.

As the extreme example of Gazprom shows, the mad corporate rush to the Internet has left behind the detritus of websites better left off-line. Since I am frequently asked to evaluate web pages with special attention to their appropriateness for the Russian market, I will share a few criteria and things to look for (in no particular order):

1. Does the site clearly target a particular audience with relevant information?

Some web pages give the impression that the company simply crammed as many random background texts about itself as possible into HTML format and mounted them on the net. Is anybody ever going to read that stuff?

Doubtful at best, unless you have a clear idea whom you are addressing, what information of interest you have to offer them, and what you are trying to accomplish with your site (sell a product, publicize the company, support customers). If the company is serious about reaching a Russian audience (there are already hundreds of thousands of Internet users here) then the site should have a native Russian translation, viewable in all of the five main Cyrillic character encoding schemes used commonly on the Internet (those cryptic names "KOI-8", "Windows1251", etc. that you often see on Russian websites). The state-of-the-art encoding solution entails storing a single copy of each document in one encoding on the server, with special software that automatically detects the encoding on a user's browser and re-codes the page accordingly "on the fly".

2. Is the content dynamic?

Some of the most successful sites on the web are newspapers and electronic journals, because a continuous flow of new content keeps growing ranks of regular users coming back for more. Even the most basic corporate site can be enlivened by a brief monthly newsletter. A good site is always under construction, with new additions displayed or linked prominently on the main home page. The corollary to this rule is that nothing is more annoying than "under construction" warning signs sprinkled throughout a site. If a section is empty, don't mount it in the first place.

3. Can I navigate the page easily?

As you explore a good site, you should be able to find the information you need quickly and never feel lost in a labyrinth of sub-menus. Ideally, a user should be able to get most of the information he or she needs from your system just two to three menu levels underneath the main home page. When you are plotting the structure of your site, always put yourself in the shoes of a first time user and think about how, logically, he or she will approach it.

4. Can I find it?

Even the best web presence is meaningless if nobody can find it. If you are serious about web marketing or PR, you need to promote your site just like a new product. Good sites should have their own address domains (http://www.companyname.com) because nobody can remember or "guess" an address that looks like http://www.netprovider.com/users/~mypage/. The address domain should be printed on advertisements, business cards, brochures, and other traditional materials that the company publishes. In addition, relevant keywords should be strategically embedded in the pages and the site should be registered in major international and Russian Web search engines and index services. Finally, it may be worth considering purchasing linked advertisements on other high-traffic websites and announcing the site with a kind of "press release" distributed among traditional media and across Internet mailing lists and newsgroups.

5. Do the pages load quickly?

In Russia, where network bandwidth is limited and overloaded, it is important to keep your page files small or users may have to wait an excruciatingly long time for them to load. Graphics should be kept to a minimum and even color photos should ideally be under 20 kilobytes in size. Many companies with corporate websites in the U.S. are also creating pages locally on Russian networks, which speeds access for users here. You can find local web pages for computer companies such as www.ibm.ru, www.intel.ru, household applicance companies like www.tefal.ru, etc.

6. Can I view it in various browsers and without dozens of special add-ons?

Not everybody uses the latest version of Netscape, and sites should be careful not to depend on features that do not work across a wide variety of popular browser software. In addition, the main home page should load without need for "add-on" browser software for features such as MIDI sound, etc. Otherwise users without these features will suffer through a string of error messages as the page loads.

7. Is it graphically interesting yet tasteful?

Taste is inherently subjective, but my basic advice is to keep things simple and avoid messy wallpaper or backgrounds, both drab and neon colors, blinking text, and excessive use of Java or animation for their own sake. One of the best ways to learn good graphic design is to study classic examples of bad design, which you can do at http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com.

Sites for the Russian Internet which follow these guidelines are sure to be a cut above the mass of net flotsam and jetsam, although a truly top notch page is still no easy achievement. Anybody can learn the basics of HTML, the language of the web, and have a first personal homepage ready in a few hours. A truly excellent site, however, is really a full-scale publishing effort which requires the combined talents of technical facility with the basic computer tools, graphic design skills, Internet marketing savvy, and the verbal abilities of a writer and editor.