Make your Web site work harder for you

Outshine the competition online

Right now, the Internet is an exciting place for business. Web 2.0 is rapidly changing your customers' expectations; and despite the current economic climate, online spend is set to exceed last year's Christmas figures by 15 per cent*.

Transform your site into a real revenue driver and optimise the power of Web 2.0 with Microsoft Web products. Browse this site to find out how the right e-commerce solutions, inspiring content and top security tools, can enable you to attract a broad range of online spenders. So you can outshine the competition and outride the downturn.

"One of the things that attracted us to software-plus-services with Microsoft is its tradition of building enterprise-ready applications. There's an implicit understanding that they'll be robust, scalable and able to support our millions of customers." Paul Zimmerman, Head of Business Development, Play.com

Play.com

Reasons to use Windows Server 2008 as a Web server (PDF 187KB)

Top tips

Discover how to create harder working Web sites.

  • Web 2.0 & e-commerce tips

    Unless your product catalogue is very, very small, provide a quality search mechanism
    There are well-known and very extensive guidelines, but you will still need some effort to make it an enjoyable and relevant experience.

    Make it easy for the customer to buy
    Clear calls to action are vital. It can never be too simple!

    Cross referencing and contextualising products will really help potential customers to see the value in what they're about to invest in.

    Tracking
    If you offer a delivery-based business, consider integrating geo-tracking with an integrated delivery-status update map on your site.

    Give your customers a reason to return
    Integrating a wish-list into your shopping bag means you know which items your customers are interested in, so you can market to them directly. This also provides a place of interest which your user will return to view.

    Discover more Web 2.0 & e-commerce tips

  • Security tips

    User data validation
    Validate all user-provided data before displaying it on a page to ensure it does not contain scripts.

    Involve the client in at least a high-level overview of security requirements
    That way they are sympathetic to the security efforts and are more likely to allocate budget to proper security practices right from the start.

    Protect your cookies
    Use the httpOnly property for authentication cookies to mitigate the impact of cross site scripting exploits. This property means the cookie cannot be read by client-side scripts.

    If you're developing asp.net sites, don't rename web.config files to web.config.bak, web.config.old or similar.

    Manual security code reviews are invaluable
    They will often show up any weaknesses that sometimes penetration testing will miss.

    Discover more Security tips

  • Richer customer experience tips

    Talk to your audience and get their feedback before you develop something new
    User research can be very insightful.

    3 clicks is a myth
    In practice, users' don't really care how many clicks they have to make as long as the options presented to them at each stage are clear and they can see that they are making progress towards their goal.

    Think early
    User experience must be considered at every stage of a project, because each phase contributes to the final user experience.

    Design for accessibility
    Strive to make sure that you site is still usable when stylesheets are not used (to cater for all users, including users with extra accessibility requirements). This also makes it easier to export the site to various browsing platforms.

    Separating structure (HTML) presentation (CSS) and behaviour (JavaScript) improves code maintainability and forward/backwards compatibility.

    Discover more customer experience tips

* Source: www.startups.com