Early in my career, websites slowly became the rage. Everyone decided they needed to have one – even though they had no idea what they were going do with it. We’re experiencing that same sort of “gold rush” mentality with social media today.

Today, it’s hard to imagine doing business with someone who doesn’t have a presence on the Web, but believe it or not, websites haven’t been around forever. And in the 30ish years that they have existed, they’ve evolved quite a bit.

In the beginning, websites were very simple. They might be a page or a handful of pages, but they were in essence like a business’s front window display. As you can imagine, there was no interaction and very little design. It was just text and pictures. Sadly, there are still plenty of sites that are living back in the ’90s.

Sites evolved as computer code was created that allowed us to “style” the pages. We used themes and templates to create a more holistic branded look rather than white backgrounds with black type and blue hyperlinks. We also added tables and more interesting visuals. Again, many sites are still sitting right where they started on the evolutionary timeline.

Websites had moved from being a simple storefront to being an entire catalog. People shoved everything and anything into their website. Think of it as a 25-page brochure, but often without any opportunity for the visitor to interact, ask questions or make a suggestion.

In place of real interaction, there were pop-up windows and scripts that would allow someone to sign up for a mailing list, and everyone seemed to have a huge host of animated graphics. I think of this era as the “if we can do it, we should” cycle. If it could spin, blink or blow up, it was on the site.

Finally, it began to occur to everyone involved that all of that noise was more entertaining to the programmers than helpful to the site’s visitors. All of a sudden, it was cool to care about users’ experiences and how you might be valuable enough so site visitors would come back on a regular basis.

The idea that we should start with the visitor and go from there shouldn’t be revolutionary thinking, but when you look over the history of websites, it really is. In the early days, people were fascinated by the technology itself. Now the technology is a given, so what the technology connects visitors to has to be the focal point.

Organizations need to consider things like:

• Did they find us organically (type in our URL or search for a key word) or is it more likely that they were referred to us from another site (an inbound link)?

• Are they coming for information, to learn, to be inspired, to socialize or connect, to do homework before going bricks-and-mortar shopping, or did they come to buy?

• How did they get to our site – a desktop computer or a mobile device (tablet or smartphone).

• Do I want them to come back? What would make them want to?

• Do I believe in the “build it and they will come” theory of Web strategy, or am I going to need to go out and attract the right people to my site?

In next week’s column, we’re going to talk about where Web strategy and design is going, and what your next website should do and look like.

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and blogs at www.drewsmarketingminute.com. He can be reached by email at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com. © 2012 Drew McLellan