These are infamous words, generally spoken by infamous people.  Or at least people that are about to become infamous.

There are literally hundreds of ways organizations arrive at the decision that they need to build a new website.  Sometimes the decision is simply dictated from the CEO.  Sometimes the decision is driven by a change in ownership or control.  Sometimes the decision is driven by the poor performance and usability of the current website.  For the point I am trying to make here, the driving factor of the decision doesn’t matter.

What does matter is the mistake that at least 20% of small and medium businesses make: I call it the “All I need is a web designer” mistake.

Really? No, I mean really?

Listen.  Perhaps you just want a brochure site.  Static.  You don’t care about driving “new” traffic.  You don’t care about using the site as a lead generator or customer acquisition tool.  You don’t care about using the site to become a thought leader in your industry.  That’s cool – go find a designer – there are thousands of great ones out there, some of whom we work with on a regular basis.

But if you’re interested in making your website a complete, living, breathing, fluid marketing vehicle, then please don’t say things like the following:

“We don’t need any help with our messaging.  We’ve got that down pat. “

Really? No, I mean really? Strangely enough, the companies that usually say that are the ones that DO have their messaging down pat.  Down pat in the CEO’s head.  And only his head.  And the messaging is in his/her head equates to 10 pages of messaging if you could extract it.

“Don’t worry about the copy.  We have all kinds of brochures, and if the information isn’t there we can always use all the copy on the current site.”

Really? No, I mean really? Brochures aren’t websites.  And if you don’t have any formal messaging plan, then that copy that resides on your site probably doesn’t make any sense.

“Not sure that SEO matters to us.  All of our customers come through referrals, and that seems to work out pretty well.”

Really? No, I mean really? That’s probably one of the reasons why your business isn’t growing.  You’re maintaining a business, not growing it.  If you’re good with that, then forget the SEO.  It will probably drive all kinds of new leads into the business, and you’ll have to figure out how to deal with these new leads instead of always handling “warm” leads.  Who would want to deal with that problem, after all?

This brings us back to my favorite:

“All I need is a web designer.”

Yup.  And when I build my next house, I’ll just get someone to paint the outside real nice.  Plumbing doesn’t matter.  Working appliances don’t matter.  Electricity? Who needs it.  Just make it look nice on the outside and we’re good to go.

I encounter a lot of franchisor and franchisee websites in my daily life, both as a consumer and businessperson.  While some franchise systems have figured how important it is to build a well-branded, easy to navigate, action-oriented site, the vast majority still miss the mark. 

Here are a few “dos” for the consumer audience:

• Make the homepage simple.  Layout should be clean.  Information should be limited to what is most important to the consumer.  Page should load lightning fast.
• Allow the consumer to find the closest location, or for that matter any location, from anywhere in the site.  That, in addition to gathering information, is the most common reason for the consumer’s visit to the franchise website.
• Provide more than just address information for each location.  Add local coupons.  Add a picture of the store so the consumer can identify landmarks.  Add easy ways to get in touch with the local store, like store-specific emails, phone numbers or even click-to-call functionality.

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Had a discussion with a professional services firm today regarding a problem they’re experiencing.  The problem revolves around a very simple yet often overlooked page on the typical company website – the contact form.  This company recently redesigned their website, and while site traffic has been rising, their lead volume from these site contact forms has been declining.  As a matter of fact, the numbers from their web analytics package were pretty staggering – in the last month alone, 476 page views of the contact page, and only 3 form submissions.

While we looked under a bunch of rocks to rule out other problems, one look at the contact page told me everything I needed to know.  Here are the problems, and the prescribed medication:

Problem #1: The page is waaaay too crowded.  Lots of links, lots of imagery, lots of reasons to leave.

Solution #1: Treat someone sitting on your contact page like someone sitting at your cash register ready to make a purchase, except in this case remove the Snickers bars, the US Weekly and the Chapstick display.  Remove all clutter other than the essentials.

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Raise your hand if your website redesign or relaunch has been delayed due to website copy modifications, or specifically the idea that 2-3 members of your senior management team need to review site copy before it goes live. 

Based on experience, I am certain there are a bunch of you with your hands raised.  4 of every 5 website projects I’ve been involved in veer off track due to delays in the copy approval/revision process, not necessarily the copywriting process (although the initial copywriting phase is a delay candidate as well).

Why so many cooks in the kitchen, you might ask?  From what I can gather, the reasons are fairly simple.  In a mid-size organization, a Director or Manager level employee “owns” the website project, and may even have a webmaster or marketing manager as a “co-owner”.  Then you insert 1-3 members of the senior management team, all of whom (rightfully so) hold a stake in the success of the website.  Those members of the senior management team may be involved in the early phases of the website revamp process – they want to sign off on final design, general site structure, etc.  But what they REALLY want to get involved in is the copywriting of the website, or at least the critique of copywriting piece of the website.

Right or wrong (and senior management getting involved in copywriting is not necessarily a bad thing), here’s why senior management wants to get involved, and why it always causes delays:

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We hear this all too often from companies.  They’ve engaged a web design/development firm to build a shiny new website, complete with all kinds of spectacular functionality, and yet the concept of search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t addressed until the site is in some type of beta phase, ready to launch.

While the recommendation is always to address SEO during the earliest stages of a website redesign project, the “I forgot about SEO” camp can relax a bit.  Assuming the has been structured correctly from a design/coding standpoint, you will still be able to handle SEO appropriately prior to site launch and in a more comprehensive manner post-launch.  So let’s discuss the simplest things you can do during these later stages…

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