Why do so many websites fail? Simple. Websites are built by web developers. They are highly complex data sets which hopefully provide a seamless interactive experience for their customers – or do they? But where is the strategy?
People use the Internet as a research tool. Purely and simply. Yes, people shop online. I recently bought my Dell laptop online. I also do my banking, and buy my music and books in this way. Some people date online. Others spend time in community based content sites such as myspace.com and facebook.com
When my partner called from San Francisco recently on a business trip, looking for the proximity of her next morning’s appointment to her hotel , I could tell her within minutes that it was 3 blocks south and 7 blocks west, down by the harbour and right on a tram line if she didn’t want to walk! Thank you Google Maps.
Yet the fact remains that the Internet is the greatest information source we have ever known. And here comes my point. While developers are creating amazing things with Flash Actionscript and object oriented programming, the customer only wants to know where they can find X, whatever X happens to be. Without the strategy buttoned down, you are really only buying a better mousetrap.
Good content therefore creates a useful experience to the visitor to your site. So how many websites have a clear and simple message about the business and its brand position? If I’m confused by a company’s website, it’s unlikely that I’ll be compelled to get in the car and visit their place of business. You’ve already confused me and therefore lost me as a customer.
Businesses in general have a low level of understanding about the web. In the past, we have worked with businesses to develop the online expression of their brand (otherwise known as a web page) we have often been internally managed by their IT Manager! Since when does a publicly listed company involve their IT guy on strategy? And whilst decisions relating to load balancing, firewall settings and content management systems are very important technical considerations, they are irrelevant to the customer.
Strategy (brand strategy) comes first, closely followed by the business strategy. Then we can build a better mousetrap!
A word on Flash. Adobe Flash is THE industry standard for designing beautiful, full screen animated interactive online experiences. But they are not web pages! Flash evolved from Macromedia’s Multimedia development sotware frorm the early nineties known as Macromind Director. Director was interactive and allowed developers to create games, public kiosks, and interactive publications complete with digital video and stereo audio. In it’s day it was amazing!
Then someone decided to create the web <object> tag, enabling an encapsulated object to be embeded into a html page. Bingo! Interactive, unrestrained media-rich web content, visible in the web browser. But Director was not very stable and highly intense in it’s development requirements. Enter Flash! The cut down solution to all our problems. The designers holy grail. The answer to all the bad, restrictive, web compliant, table based design. And you didnt need a degree in Pure Mathematics to create an exciting interactive, fully animated experience.
But Flash comes at a price. Think Google. Google indexes webpages and ranks them according to the relevance of your content. However, when it comes to a flash page, it reads the HTML which simply states, <object>“here is an embedded object, end </object></body> end page. Flash is invisible to the world’s largest searchable database. No indexing!
Is this a reasonable trade off? Many believe it is! I personally don’t. But don’t panic! There are work-arounds.
Flash can be used with great effect within web compliant pages. Your pages will be indexed by Google’s crawler and you can still have a better mousetrap than your competition! In Summary. If you want to have a successful web site, follow these simple points as a guide:
1.Identify and be clear about your brand strategy.
2.Your web site is an information/communication platform between you and your customer. Use the same logic as you do in all other aspects of your business. If it doesn’t make sense to you then there’s a strong chance that it wont make sense to your customers and channel partners.
3.Dont be influenced by your IT department. Take the point of view of your customer. They don’t care what technology your site is built on as long as they can get what they came for while at the same time meeting your business goals. Win/win.
4.Yes, your website should have a business goal. Even if it’s just to encourage a telephone enquiry.
5.Use Flash wisely.
6.Be prepared to support your website on-going. Websites, like your garden, perish if not watered regularly. Never underestimate the power of good content. The web is about communication. So communicate!