Where should you put your resources?

I posted this over at our sister site, Scrappy Upstarts as well.

As a scrappy upstart you have to consider what’s fundamentally necessary for your site and business to succeed, and what’s just fancy trimming. This certainly comes down to cost-control, but knowing what features to focus on that can be cost-effective and sales inducing is most important.

So fundamentally, what’s essential to your site? Solid page structure, effective navigation, and a point of contact - Simple enough.

Now what elements are you convincing yourself are just “bells & whistles”? But may deserve a second look?

Flash intro animation?

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Probably the most overdone feature of any web site, not needed, usually skipped save the money.

Often called “mystery meat navigation” and probably the worst violation of using dolalrs and time unwisely. Stick to the fundamentals of clear web navigation. What are they? Well, if your site have navigational features you’ve never experienced online before, then you do. The fundamentals of navigation have been refined over a decade stick to them and users will thank you.

On site Blog/news section?

An area that contains consistently updated content is always a good thing. It helps in SEO, it helps bring your users back, and it can even engage you in your own site. BUT if you don’t plan to commit to updating it weekly or more, than don’t bother.

Analytics?

While google analytics arguably has its faults - it’s free, enough said. You or your developer can easily paste the code and start monitoring.

Forum?

This one has a few caveats. Does your product need to invoke a sense of community to succeed? If yes, then go for it. What do I mean by this? That’s for another article.

Custom checkout?

Sometimes the simple shopping cart plug in from your provider is good enough, or even simple paypal payment links can get you there. But if your product requires some specific upfront information then you may want to consider customizing your cart - costs can run deep for this kind of optimization, so watch it.

I’ve heard conversion rates being increased as much as 40-60% with the use of a trust seal, I can’t speak to their accuracy. But at the very least it’s a small price to pay to give your customers peace-of-mind that you’re a legitimate enterprise. Trust-Guard verifies your company info, policies etc, and is a good upstart alternative to the more expensive McAfee and Verisign.

Toll free number?

At approximately $50 a month the features being offered by services like onebox.com and ifbyphone.com should make this a pair of shoes. But in this climate you may get by at launch with just a contact form.

Solving every IE6 compatibility issue?

Currently IE6 accounts for 20% of browser use, and 98.8% of web development ulcers. Its usage is dropping month-to-month. If you’re a web developer - fix your errors. If you’re a non-developer on a budget? Focus your developer’s billable hours on the other shoes.