A word from Oracle:

“Major strength of the course was that it was customized for us.  The materials were very specific to our needs. Where appropriate, the instructor even made videos for us that touched on many different topics for us to review later.” Saidul I., Senior Team Lead – Supply Chain Management

Nathan S., WebCenter Developer – Supply Chain Management 

Brittany M., WebCenter Developer – Supply Chain Management   

Jonathon H., WebCenter Developer – Supply Chain Management   

Whitney L., WebCenter Developer – SMB Communications & Marketing Provider 

Kent F., WebCenter Developer – SMB Communications & Marketing Provider 

Cesar C., WebCenter Developer – SMB Communications & Marketing Provider 

Corina B., Application Developer – SMB Communications & Marketing Provider 

Carmen T., Technical Architect – SMB Communications & Marketing Provider

10 Homepage Necessities of a Successful Website

Hello everyone and welcome to WebCenter Whiteboard “Drawing out WebCenter Solutions” with Redstone Content Solutions. My name is Michael Lawrence and I’ll be your host for today’s video. This is our new web series focusing on maximizing the value of your WebCenter investment. Today we’re going to talk about “10 Homepage Necessities for a Successful Website”. This is a list of 10 items that we feel belong on every single homepage of every website – to maximize the impact of that homepage. It’s typically the first page your visitors are going to land on. 

So without further ado, let’s get on to number one, Intuitive Navigation.  It’s important to have a navigation bar, whether you feature it at the top or along the side to inform users of your high level pages, products, services, about the company, a contact us form. Anything that is going to move them closer to the information they are after, because, that’s what they are on your site for - whether it’s a product or actual intellectual knowledge that they are trying to find. 

Number two is a Company Tagline. This should be something catchy that is going to resonate with and get remembered by visitors. It’s going to eventually be what draws them back to your website. 

Next is the Introduction. It’s important to introduce yourself just like when you do when you meet somebody new for the first time. You have new site visitors coming to your website and you’re going to want to introduce yourself, say “Hi, I am Redstone and I am a Gold Level Partner of Oracle. We specialize in WebCenter Portal, Content, Sites and Training.” This helps them identify what it is that you do, who you are and if they’re in the right place or not.  

I think it is very important to support that with number four, which is an Image or Video. A picture is worth a thousand words - I believe that to be true. So, it’s very important to support your introduction with a supporting video or image because you don’t want to be too long in your introduction. It should be just about a thirty-second elevator speech.  

Number five is Benefits. Let them know what they’re going to get out of it – whether that’s your products or services. You’re always going to hear in the sales discussion, “What’s in it for me?”  The benefits are what’s in it for them and this is an easy way to fish-hook them in - to find more information.  If they know they can lower storage cost or offer personalized content to their site visitors that might be enough information to get them to forge deeper into the website for more information.  

Number six is Calls-to-Action. You can do this with a free trial, sign-up for our newsletter and download one of our whitepapers - anything that’s going to get them take action where you can gather their name, contact information and learn more about your customers. Then reach out to them and ask them if there is anything you can do for them.  

Number seven is Features. I think it is very important to support your benefits with features. Typically, your features are what produce the benefits. Reusable and granular analytics are some features that promote the personalized content and give that to the client. Let them know the tools and features that they are going to be using to produce those benefits for them and their company.  

Number eight is No-cost Content. I mentioned just a second ago free-trials. I think that its great to offer more than free trials. For example, we offer free downloads for WebCenter. If you’re a developer please check those out. People like things for free and were in business to make money, but offer little tid-bits of information whether it’s white papers, webinars or no-cost downloads. That will give them information they want, but also build your reputation up as an industry leader and prove to them that you do know what you are talking about.  Everything that you’ve said thus far, they can try it themselves to confirm that. 

Number nine is Testimonials. It is easy to brag about yourself. In marketing and the business side of things – promote, promote, promote. - this is what we do, we’re capable of this.  But, hearing it from somebody’s clients in a testimonial, they obviously used your services, they benefited from it and are willing to go on the record publicly. I think that says huge amounts of positive things about your company. To have public testimonials like that – so definitely feature those on your home page. 

And, the last thing on our homepage is Accomplishments.  If you have been awarded an industry accomplishment, whether it’s a Training survey response, you were the first to do this or the only one to that’s ever done this. For example, Redstone we were the first WebCenter Sites Specialized Partner of Oracle. In 2013 we are the preferred WebCenter Training partner due to survey data. So, let people know about your accomplishments because those are things you do want to brag about and can be confirmed by a third party. 

That wraps out our top ten homepage necessities for a successful website. I hope you have enjoyed it.  If you have any questions, comments, concerns, just want to talk about the video, or if you want to be a potential guest host for our web series, WebCenter Whiteboard, please comment below. And, I look forward to speaking with all of you.  Have a great day and remember, Redstone Content Solutions: We Deliver.  

"Mark is employed by a worldwide leader in process automation services and technologies. 

Mark’s company was previously unable to locate relevant information required for sound business decisions. 

Mark understood that in order to improve compliance with ever-changing regulations, he needed to: 

• Convert paper-based documents into an electronic format for secure sharing across the enterprise 
• Eliminate manual approval processes by leveraging automated workflow 
• Dynamically publish internal and external-facing websites with accurate information

Mark employed Redstone Content Solutions to implement WebCenter to consolidate, manage and effectively share his company’s unstructured corporate data. 

Mark’s company no longer suffers from ‘information overload’ and is now managing content as a strategic asset. Additionally, he has been able to lower software licensing, implementation and on-going support costs, improve productivity, reduce risk while increasing security, and increase business agility.

WebCenter has allowed Mark to run the business while changing the business! 

To learn more about how we can help you get the most from WebCenter, just click the ‘Contact Us” link, below, and we’ll be in touch soon. Redstone Content Solutions: We Deliver."