Common website pitfalls that you can avoid
November 19th, 2009 Posted by: Bill Gadless
Ran across an interesting post recently by Paul Boag (who runs a website-design house across the pond in the UK), titled “10 harsh truths about corporate websites”. I thought it neatly summarized many of the pitfalls we see too many of our clients fall into. His points are derived mostly from experience with very large organizations; but most apply to some extent across the board, so we’ve picked out several to whet your appetite (advise clicking on over for the rest, it’ll be worth it)…
- Managing your website is a full-time job …and probably for more than one person. Assigning someone to maintain even a smallish site alongside their “real” job is a one-way ticket to ruination of the site, and is simply incompatible with the central role of the website in today’s marketing. You’re almost better off going without a site than having one that’s not properly resourced; eventually, it will become apparent to your visitors (read prospects), and that will reflect negatively on… your image and brand. Eventually, the website becomes such an embarrassment that senior management steps in and demands that it be sorted out; which leads to a related point…
- Periodic redesign is not enough. It’s certainly the higher-cost approach, with a serious expenditure needed every couple years. A better approach is diligent content updating and continuous evolution over time.
- Your site will never appeal to everyone …and it’s counter-productive to try. As Paul puts it: “The harsh truth is that if you build a website for everyone, it will appeal to no one. It is important to be extremely focused about your audience, and cater your design and content to it.”
- Design by committee brings death. It’s fine – in fact, essential – to have a group representative of the site’s stakeholders formulate the objectives and rough out the information architecture. But design is subjective; the odds that a group will be unanimously happy with a given design are close to zero. Design by committee becomes about compromise, and the end result is nearly always bland mediocrity.
- You have too much content. Something we rarely have to tell clients, since the more typical problem is not enough content to support visitors’ information needs, thought-leadership demonstration, or SEO goals. But this is most often a problem with older sites that grew like Topsy, with no “sundown” law to force removal of content that’s no longer current, relevant, or sometimes even true. Occasionally, B2B clients put up too much because they forget they’re not trying to actually sell their product, but simply to gain sufficient interest/trust for the prospect to begin a 6+ month journey.
As Paul concludes: avoiding these pitfalls “…will give you a significant competitive advantage and allow your Web strategy to become more effective over the long term.”
Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy
