He uses it to put his name (or the firm’s name) up in big — I mean BIG — letters, and he puts up an exhibit that is largely chest thumping. ME, ME, ME!
Would you hire such a person?

Odds are you would. Odds are you already have. Odds are you are doing the same thing and don’t even know it.

Go to your Web site. What do you see? I’ll bet you see the name of your firm in the largest print on your home page: “XYZ Company Home Page.” Suppose you went to a theater and came across a large sign saying, “Welcome to the theater!” How would you feel? You may not feel annoyed, but you wouldn’t feel thrilled. You certainly wouldn’t have any positive reaction.

That’s what happens when you place the company name as the headline on your Web site. It’s the most prime real estate you have and you’re throwing it away by stating the obvious.

What should you have instead? A benefit statement. A clear elucidation — no hyperbole, just fact — of why the viewer should stay on your page, why he should do business with you, what you can do for him.

Want an example? Go to www.activemarketplace.com. See the headline? See the sub-head with the clearly stated benefit? In my opinion, both the headline and the sub-head could be improved quite a bit, but that’s beside the point. He has the right idea.

What about your company name the one you are so proud of, the one that you would like every newborn babe to know, the one that will lead you to fabulous riches as investors flock to buy it after your IPO? Doesn’t it belong on the site? Relax. It does. It belongs on every page. Just don’t let it hog the most important parts.

How can you do this? A good way is to have a well-designed logo, professionally produced, that includes the company name. Put this on the upper left of every page and your customers will know where they are at all times. See activemarketplace.com again for an execution of this idea.

I’ll bet you have your menu at the top of your home page. Wrong move. The top of the page is the best real estate you have. Don’t throw it away with something so insipid as a menu. When is the last time that reading a site menu thrilled the cockles of your heart? When it gave you a warm feeling about the company? When it made you curious about the company and its products?

Never, you say? I’m not surprised. Menus are not exciting. They are not meant to create “buzz,” to get you all agog at the thought of using the product or service. They are ho-hum things, kind of like subway maps. You need them to get around, but you sure won’t curl up at night reading one.

Then why would you take your very best space and give it to this non-performer? Put in good, compelling, benefit-laden copy instead.

Where should the menu be? Put it in a column — a narrow column — on the left of the page. Or put it on the bottom. It really doesn’t matter very much. If what you say on your home page is compelling, the reader will find the menu because he wants more information. If it’s not compelling, he will depart and you don’t need the menu at all.

Let’s talk about special effects the really neat Flash implementation your advertising agency is trying to sell you. The one with flickering curlicues, floating balloons and text appearing and mysteriously vanishing. It looks gorgeous. Simply superb. So good that you’re ready to reach for your checkbook because you simply must have it for your company, the baby you have conceived and birthed.

Again, wrong move. Dispense with all such frippery. The only benefit is to the guy who is trying to sell it to you. It’s worse than useless for you. It’s actually poison.

Special effects take forever to load, especially for those surfing with a 56K modem (And I’ve seen intricate patterns that take time to load even with a T1 connection or a cable modem). How many times can you recall going to a Web page, waiting impatiently for it to appear on your screen and then leaving? Have you ever thought more of a company because its site has good flash effects? I rest my case.

Your consumer is just like you. Don’t play around with him. Tell him simply what you have to offer. Use clean text with a serif font — no painful gimmicks such as white text on a dark background. This is so difficult to read that most people simply go away and you wonder why your brilliant copy had so little effect. Black text on a white background is best. Any good, dark text on very light background works. It is okay to use different colors to highlight key words or phrases. In fact you should do this. Go to www.multiplestreams.com for an example of this.

Let’s talk about the design of your site. Do you provide useful information and then a helpful link for the visitor to click so he can explore further? Use such links with great care. You don’t want to send YOUR prospect to some other site from which he may never return. This is painfully obvious, and I am constantly surprised by how many sites do it anyway.

There can also be a problem even if the link takes your visitor to another part of your own site. The problem is that you are letting the prospect play around and dictate your presentation. Would you do this in a sales presentation in person? Of course not. You would say something like, “That’s an interesting point. Let’s get to it after I finish showing you my story.”

Your site should be designed to take the visitor down a carefully conceived set of steps. These steps should tell him about your product, highlight the product’s benefits, evoke interest and finally incite action — preferably a purchase, but more frequently, a qualified inquiry. Letting the prospect monkey around with the process by providing links is frequently counterproductive.

Should you then not provide more information? Of course you should. You want to be known as a helpful company with a wonderfully informative site. Just don’t put links gratuitously in the middle of your carefully designed presentation.

Have a separate page for that. Stock it full of links and explain where each link will take the visitor and what he will find there. And be sure to remind him to come back by hitting the return key on his browser window.

Srikumar S. Rao is Louis and Johanna Vorzimer professor of marketing at New York’s Long Island University.