Friends often ask questions like how to build a professional website. Every time I use my own experience and understanding to give them some suggestions. But as the number of times increases, my understanding gradually deepens. I feel that doing An important condition for a good professional website is to first cultivate yourself into an expert in this field.
Before in-depth analysis, we must first define a professional website. The professional website mentioned here refers to a website that focuses on a certain field or industry or a specific region. It has three characteristics: first, focus, which does not cover everything and do everything; second, scope, which cannot be infinitely extended; third, professionalism, as the service objects have one or more significant characteristics.
Why build a professional website
It is not difficult for anyone who pays attention to the Internet to find that there are more and more professional websites in recent times. The reasons may be twofold. On the one hand, there is insufficient resources or insufficient information. Insufficient resources include funds, experience, talents, etc. There are not enough. Reserves, but I don’t want to lose a great opportunity, so I have to start from a small area. Insufficient confidence generally refers to new entrants. Among them, there are those from traditional industries who have transformed into the Internet, and there are also those who are new products from Internet companies. They often enter with an "experimental" attitude and test the market through one point. Correctness of responses and website schema. Whether they are those who lack resources or lack information, they all have one thing in common: "they have to". For them, professional websites are just their experimental fields, and they will develop into broader fields whenever they have the opportunity in the future. On the other hand, there are more professional players. They realize that the homogenization problem of the current Internet is extremely serious. Some fields have reached a state of super saturation. If they want to survive, they must find a base of their own, so they find a niche market. We have done a lot of analysis and demonstration, and our goal is to become the king of this market. Facts have proved that the probability of success of this part of enterprises will be relatively high.
Three steps to build a professional website
Whether they regard professional websites as a process or as an end point, they all have a common purpose, which is to make the website well. So, how can we build a successful professional website? Personally, I think it should be done in three steps. Of course, this is not strictly three steps. Here we focus on three aspects of the matter.
First, you need to understand the characteristics of the Internet and the advantages it has over traditional industries. For example, high-speed communication, interactivity, no time and space restrictions, low cost, etc. Of course, this does not require you to have a very senior background. I just hope that you can know and understand it, because only by understanding can you make better use of it.
Second, deeply understand the field you are engaged in and identify flaws or deficiencies. The purpose is to understand your target market and customer needs. The deeper your understanding of the field, the more accurate your grasp of the needs will be. Most non-professional websites serve the public and are what we use every day. At this time, you may be your user, or your friends and family around you can find your users, so it is easy to understand the target audience. needs, but most professional websites have certain particularities, especially in fields with strong professional nature. It is necessary to spend enough time and energy to understand its industry characteristics, business model, competition situation, future development space, and current encounters. questions etc.
Third, use the advantages of the Internet to make up for the shortcomings of traditional industries. After gaining an in-depth understanding of a field, you will inevitably find some problems, such as information asymmetry between supply and demand, difficulty in finding and choosing, inability to get feedback from customers in a timely manner, etc. Then you need to solve these problems through your website. This is a professional website A necessary condition for success is also the basis for the survival of professional websites.
The most important of the three steps is the second step. Whether you have enough understanding of the field you are engaged in and whether you have the quality of an expert in the field will directly affect demand analysis, affect website positioning, affect the realization of website functions... and ultimately affect The success or failure of the entire website.
There is another point that I have to remind everyone here. Many people will ask me, I did this but still failed. Why? Where is the problem? The answer is very simple. The problem lies in "greed for too much". As your understanding of this field continues to deepen, you will discover more and more problems. At this time, it is easy to become confused and want to solve all the problems for them, but no problem can be solved. At this time, the key decision-makers need to have a clear mind. What you have to do first is to concentrate on solving one or two core problems. As long as you can solve one or two core problems, you can attract enough target users. When there are more users, you will be able to attract more target users. Slowly expand and continuously improve other functions. This is very critical! Otherwise, it will be easy to go astray, and ultimately the website will be specialized but not comprehensive.
How to develop your “expert” qualities
Since the quality of "experts" is so important, can't you make a website if you are not an expert? This is of course not the original intention of this article. I just hope that everyone will pay attention to this. As for the quality of "experts", you can also continuously improve it in the process. . Generally speaking, there are the following ways to improve professional quality in the field:
1. Communicate directly with people in the industry
This is the best method. The advantage is that direct contact with users enhances the authenticity and comprehensiveness of the information, and you can often obtain first-hand information. The disadvantage is that it is not easy to enter, especially for new entrants. It is even more difficult to penetrate deep into its interior when you don’t know anything. In addition, in actual operations, you must also pay attention to the quality and quantity of the people you contact. Whether they are highly professional and representative in the field needs to be considered by yourself.
2. Study through professional books and journal systems
This is the easiest way to achieve it, through systematic study in some professional books or journals to improve knowledge and understanding of the field. The advantage is that it is the threshold and easy to implement; the disadvantage is that there is a lack of first-line information and there may be problems with the timeliness and interactivity of information. In addition, some emerging fields may not have relevant books on the market yet, so it is more suitable to obtain information from the Internet.
3. Obtain information from the Internet
The Internet is a good way to obtain information. You can find relevant communities and forums, where you can both learn knowledge and communicate with others. Even methods like Baidu Zhizhi can be used by you.
4. Analyze your competitors
This is also a method often used by people in the industry. Although you can analyze user needs through the other party's website, I personally recommend not to analyze the competition at the beginning. This can easily lead you astray, because you do not know and cannot own other people's resources. , so I still hope to only use the competitor’s website as a reference and not blindly imitate.
Prospects for professional websites
Many people doubt the prospects of professional websites and feel that the market is limited. Even if they achieve 100% market share, they will not be satisfied. I don’t want to generalize here. For those companies and individuals with sufficient resources, it may be a good idea to consider it this way. But I think most practitioners do not have such conditions. More importantly, the scale of many professional markets is very considerable, and even a share of 20 or 30 can obtain very generous returns.
Regarding the comparison of the advantages of professional websites and portal websites, I don’t want to say too much here. I just firmly believe that no big website can cover everything, and only professionals can achieve the ultimate. If someone could cite a few rare examples to refute me, I would answer in three words: resources, opportunities, and time. (Text/Liu Haichao)
Author Hai Yi's personal space This article only represents the author's views and has nothing to do with the position of Webmaster.com.