(This is a guest post from Andy Hayes, managing director for Travel Online Partners.)
So, if you’re reading this then you probably have a website or “online presence” (cue buzzer noise) where you market your business. If you don’t have a website, then you’ve totally missed the technology shift of the century, so please stop reading now and go get one.
Websites are fantastic – they’re good for consumers and they’re good for business. Consumers can browse your products and services, hassle free, and comparison shop in an environment that’s on their terms. They’re good for business too: a website is a 24x7 sales workhorse, always putting your best foot forward and providing consumers easy access into your marketing channel.
Or at least that is the idea. A lot of small business websites are really bad not very good. Some of them are downright awful. Here are two of the many reasons why.
Your Website is Built for Everybody
One of the basic tenants of small business marketing is having a clear persona of your ideal customer – in my view, into such detail that you could give them a name and hair colour. Yet, most websites are built for everybody: Joe Bloggs, Jane Bloggs, John Doe….You use language that your customer’s don’t understand, you have images that do not resonate with them, and worst of all: you fail to convince those website visitors that your product or solution solves the problem they have. Wasn’t that the idea of having a website in the first place?
Everything on your website should be written for somebody special. Not everybody. Everybody doesn’t care.
Your Website is a Technology Showcase
Did your web designer talk you into some fantastic flashing widgets? How about that 5 minute video I have to sit through before I can get my question answered? (oh – wait, nevermind – there’s a skip button hidden here in the corner I didn’t see). Oh, and here are those fold-down menus showing me the hundreds of pages that you have to describe what exactly it is that you can do for me. Fabulous!
For the techno geeks, that is. For your special customer, the one I mentioned previously, they didn’t come to your website to experience your technical prowess. They came here to get a question answered. [Note: web designers – you are excused and are allowed to be slightly show off.] Get all of that fluff and junk out of that way that is stopping them from deciding whether or not you answer their question or take care of the problem they have.
It should be effortless to get into your website and get around. No auto-start videos, no mandatory full-screen flash animations, and pages of advertisements before your content. Take a minute to declutter your menu, declutter your sidebar, and while you’re at it, have a fresh look at that sales copy. Oh, and if I don’t understand or have technical issues, is your contact information prominently displayed on every page?
Websites are an awesome marketing tool. Well, they should be. Is yours?
Andy Hayes is the managing director for Travel Online Partners, a travel online marketing firm. They offer a popular website review service - and they’re also writing a new eBook, Why Your Website S***s. Go, subscribe now.
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