Ugly and functional wins on the Web for sites doing e-commerce. Ryanair, Skype, eBay, Amazon, and My Space are just a few examples of websites that are hugely functional and hugely effective. The last thing you want to do is win design awards with your website. Instead, you want a website that is simple and clear, that speaks to customers so they will listen and buy.

Gerry will give you the insights you need to build an e-commerce website that is highly functional and highly effective. There are still a lot of marketers out there who don’t truly understand the Web. They try to directly apply the skills they have learned in offline marketing to the management of their websites. That can be a big mistake.

Imagine you see a friend across a busy street. You wave and shout because you’re trying to get his attention. He sees you and crosses over. Now he’s standing right in front of you. Do you keep waving? Do you keep shouting at him?

It was once said that offline marketing is about getting attention, whereas online marketing is about giving attention. When someone comes to your website they have crossed the street and you have thus got their attention. That’s why the vast majority of people feel insulted by Flash Intros, and click “Skip Intro” as quickly as possible.

The biggest trap a marketer can fall into on the Web is to keep trying to get attention. People are hugely IMPATIENT on the Web. They will give your page less than 30 seconds, and if you’re not delivering the goods, they’re gone. The Web is a brutal, functional landscape, and this virtual seminar will help you design a simple, functional website.

People are task-focused when they come to your website. The job of your information architecture is to help them, firstly, identify the task they came to complete, and then, secondly, help them complete that task as quickly as possible.

This virtual seminar is packed full of practical advise and real world examples. For 12 years, Gerry has worked with some of the best organizations in the world (BBC, UCLA, Microsoft, Pioneer, HP), and has written four books on the subject of web management. (His latest book, Killer Web Content, has just been published by Bloomsbury/AC Black.)

Although we may cringe when we see an ugly site, the fact is that ugly and functional makes the most money on the Web. This virtual seminar will help you create a winning websites design that maximize the return on your investment.