To generalize comments made by a favorite associate at www.hoopjumper.com.  That subject matter  is focused on Real Estate.  Working back from this distillation one can view the underlying principles.

Must Haves For Your Web Presence (2014)

• Custom Designed with your Brand

Landing page must convey in a single glance what you’re selling — images, images, images & call to action.

• Site Search Capabilities to find SEO optimized Listing Pages for your products

Residing Under Your Domain or SubDomain, these pages become campaign landing pages for Adwords, etc.

• Internal Blogs that Automatically Post to All Your Social Networks
• Links for visitors to like or follow your Web Presence in their social media

Activity in these channels must be regular, but more importantly — the content must bear inherent value.  Further, an analysis of which channels your clients use and how they respond should precede the effort.  Smart use of this capability builds a following of buyers.  Who needs followers that don’t spend?  Focus on paying customers, what do they need to hear?

• Search Engine Optimized Pages for Each Product Category

The content must be helpful to the person looking for it — solve a problem, beat a price …

• 100% Cross-Platform for All Browsers, Tablets and Smartphones with No Flash

This is known as “Responsive” web encoding.  If your developer doesn’t understand this, find a new one.

• Every Page on Your Site Should be Easily Editable By You 24/7

Avoid designing a custom home page that you can’t evolve instantly — we have clients that put a legacy look and feel landing page as the gateway to a responsive WordPress template behind.  Big mistake.  But in their “version of the truth”, they “preserved” their “look and feel.”  Couldn’t help them understand that this was the problem in the first place.  From a client management perspective we regard it as “Transitional.”  LOL.

• Interactive Product Features Throughout

Hover details, image explosions — like amazon — “Customers who liked this also liked” … make that alternative known.

• Contact Info and Direct Response Hooks on Every Page with Word Verification

We would add that the web should evolve from “click here to call us now” to “click here to schedule your call” and other tailored response capability.  If you’re able include “chat” and especially a knowledge base of product details, and FAQ’s.  Compelling deeper interaction includes embedding CRM (Customer Relationship Management) capability — that significantly differs from Social Media — Client “registration” and follow-up suggestions such as  “Have a representative contact you” becomes “Schedule an appointment.”   Link that ability to a shared Google Calendar, perhaps even get involved with Helpouts.google.com.

• Client Testimonials, and Lot of ‘Em