Month: January 2011

Are you ready to have a great website?

You won’t get a great website until your company is ready for website greatness.

It’s easy to do a great website for a company or organization. Here’s how:

Have a homepage with these 6 attributes:

  1. Your organization’s name, clearly identifiable
  2. A picture of one of your typical products or services with a call-to-action tagline or a benefits statement.
  3. Simple, clearly labeled top or side navigation with one- or two-word links to key pages on the site — and a link that gets you back to the homepage from anywhere on the site.
  4. Icon links to your  related social media pages or channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
  5. All the necessary “small print” links at the bottom of the page (Privacy Policy, Site Map, Contact Us, etc.)
  6. Brevity. On a multi-page website (as opposed to a blog), aim for fewer than 100 words on the homepage (about 75 is ideal) and no paragraphs at all. Think of the homepage as a lobby, and your goal is to get the customer into a showroom, a conference room, or someone’s office.

Have your home page navigation link clearly to:

  1. A “catalog” or products page that lists all of your products and services (or categories of products and services) with a meaningful, iconic photo for each (or each category).
  2. A “buy now” page where people can go to buy/order your products, find a dealer or showroom, or contact you immediately by phone to inquire about services.
  3. A “story” page where you tell your story, with professional, candid photos of two or three of your key people (founders, staff, or clients, etc.). You can link from there to staff, board, or other key-people lists.

You might also have links to:

  • Your blog or news page
  • A page for business partners
  • A page for support or discussion boards, if appropriate.

Who’s doing it right?

Here’s what a great website looks like: Feel free to give behringer.com a spin. It not only looks great, it works, right down to finding me a Behringer distributor in my neighborhood. (And, wouldn’t you know, it’s a electronics shop owned by a friend of mine.)

I particularly liked their blog. Because it focuses exclusively on the recording artists who use their products, it isn’t given the deadly name “Blog” in the navigation — it’s called “Artists.” Think about it: Are people visiting their site interested in artists or a “blog?”

Not as easy as it looks

OK, if it’s this easy, why don’t more companies do it?

Here where we get to the sad part of the story. Watch closely, and cringe as I review the FHE (frequently heard excuses):

1. Your organization’s name, clearly identifiable

  • “We paid thousands for this incredibly clever logo that turns the letters of our name into people jumping up and down. You mean, you can’t see that they spell out “McDonald Software?”
  • “We just use the acronym MSIIBG. Everyone knows that MSIIBG means ‘McDonald Software International, Inc. — Bergstrom Group.’ Don’t they?”
  • “The sales director wants the tagline for the end-of-year campaign up at the top of the page and there wasn’t room for that and the company name.”
  • “Oh, everyone knows us by our logo; we don’t need to spell out the name.”
  • “We’re going through rebranding and might change the company name, so we don’t want to feature it until we’re sure.”

2. A clearly identifiable picture of one of your products or services with a call-to-action tagline or a benefits statement that mentions your product or service.

  • “We don’t use a product photo because we keep updating our product, and don’t want to pay the web designer to update the page. So we use this nice photo of our headquarters at the office park.”
  • “We can’t afford professional photography.”
  • “What do you mean, hundreds of other organizations are using the tagline “Software Solutions”?
  • “No, we don’t sell software, we help small businesses configure it. Isn’t that clear from the pile of software boxes in our homepage picture?”

3. Simple, clearly labeled top or side navigation with one- or two-word links in “customer language” to key pages on the site — and a link that gets you back to the homepage from anywhere on the site.

  • “But we can’t call it ‘Our Story!’ We call it our ‘Organizational Mission and Vision Directive,’ and we want the link to be consistent.”
  • “We have 24 links because want people to be able to reach everything on the site directly from the front page.”
  • “Yes, I know all those pull-down menus with multiple hierarchies are a little difficult to use, but we had to get everything up there. What do you mean, the hierarchical menus break on ‘other browsers’? I thought everybody used Internet Explorer.”
  • “Oh, you can just click on the logo to get back to the home page.”

4. Icon links to your related social media pages or channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)

  • “Oh, we don’t believe in that social media stuff.”
  • “Oh, we don’t have time for that social media stuff.”
  • “Actually, we don’t know how to use all that social media stuff.”
  • “I doubt our customers use Facebook/Twitter/YouTube.”

5. All the necessary “small print” links at the bottom of the page (Privacy Policy, Site Map, Contact Us, etc.)

  • “We put them up in the top navigation. I guess that’s why it’s so crowded.”
  • “Oh, nobody needs a Site Map anymore.”

6. Brevity. On a multi-page website (as opposed to a blog), aim for fewer than 100 words on the homepage (about 75 is ideal) and no paragraphs at all. Think of the homepage as a lobby, and your goal is to get the customer into a showroom, a conference room, or someone’s office.

  • “If we don’t put it on the homepage, nobody will read it.”
  • “People can just scroll down two or three screens.”
  • “We didn’t want to add more pages to the website, so we put it on the homepage.”
  • “I guess four different embedded videos in four different formats probably is too much.”
  • “HR, Marketing, Sales, and the Board Office all insisted that their stuff go on the homepage.”
  • “We had new stuff to put up, but no one would authorize us to take the stuff that was already up there off the site.”

Have your home page navigation link clearly to:

1. A “catalog” or products page that lists all of your products and services (or categories of products and services) with a meaningful, iconic photo for each (or each category).

  • “We don’t have/can’t afford good photos.”
  • “Our different in-house groups can’t agree on which categories should be featured, or in what order.”
  • “Oh, we don’t have time to keep something like that updated. People should just email us and ask us what we have.”
  • “Our services can’t be illustrated by photos.”
  • “Our marketing team insisted on a separate section of the website for each product/service, all linked from the top-level navigation.”

2. A “buy” page where people can go to buy/order your products, find a dealer or store, or contact you immediately by phone to inquire about services.

  • “Oh, they can just fill out this web form and someone from our sales team will get back to them…in a week or so.”
  • “If people want to contact us they can click on the “Contact Us” link and fill out the web form.”
  • “We really don’t want people calling us.”
  • “That would mean we’d have to keep our distributor list up to date, wouldn’t it? We don’t have time.”

3. A “story” page where you tell your story, with professional, candid photos of your key people (founders, staff, or clients, etc.)

  • “I don’t think we want to feature one or two people at the exclusion of others. We have 200 people, and we’re a team!”
  • “We have our Mission and Vision Statement on the website, so that tells people what we do.”
  • “I think we have a studio picture of the Executive Director around here…it’s 8 years old, though. He doesn’t like having his picture taken.”
  • “The founder doesn’t usually talk about how he was inspired to form the company after he installed Internet technology for two provincial governments in the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Gee, do you really think our customers would be interested in that?”

You get the idea. Many organizations have resource and communications issues that are barriers to effective website communication (and, often, barriers to business success — but that’s a different blog post). You can bring in top-level designers and still not get a great website if a company isn’t ready for website greatness.

NOTE: The tsunami story (details slightly tweaked to protect confidentiality) has to be my favorite FHE ever. A software company had asked my PR team to make their website more interesting to print and broadcast media reporters so they could get media coverage (including interviews with the founder) during the roll out of a new product. But the founder (an extremely handsome, outdoorsy-type dude) didn’t want to talk about anything except the relatively technical product and didn’t want a photo of himself on the website.



My petition for less space

Here’s Farhad Manjoo on “Why you never, ever use two spaces after a period.”

At least once a month I choke back an impulse to blog about writing tics that grate on my nerves. I don’t want to become a candidate for the editorial police — the sort of people who can read a suicide note and cluck over a typo.

But when another writer does a fabulous job of ranting about one of my pet peeves, I’m happy to share, in the hope that his (in this case, it’s a he) eloquence will have some effect.

So here’s Farhad Manjoo on Slate on “Why you never, ever use two spaces after a period.” He wants you to use only one space because it’s right from the perspective of readability. I want you to use only one space because I’m tired of having to go through long manuscripts that I edit, removing the darned extra spaces so they can be published. (Yes, I can use Word formulas to do it, but they don’t insure accuracy, and the results need to be painstakingly checked.)

There are, of course, reasons why you should use two spaces after a period. One is that you want people to think you have a secretary, one with blue hair in a bun who worked for your great-grandfather’s law firm. And there’s nothing like two spaces after a period to say that you’re an important executive who rarely touches a keyboard or any other type of (shudder) modern technology.

Now — would someone please tell me why Slate uses periods at the end of phrases that are not sentences, but headlines?

Verizon: Waiting for the numbers

I had a lot of fun talking with Larry Sivitz at Seattle24x7 about the iPhone and my ebook on using it.

The long-awaited announcement this morning of the Verizon iPhone went the way of most long-awaited announcements and raised more questions than it answered.

As someone who writes about iPhone issues, I confess I’m stuck. The facts have been reported, including the only surprise: The Verizon iPhone is going to have the capacity to function as a mobile hot spot, meaning your laptop (and up to four other devices) will be able to use it for Internet access. Although jailbroken iPhones have this capability, iPhones activated through AT&T currently don’t.

I don’t think this feature is enough to have most AT&T iPhone owners switch, particularly because the iPhone 4 is likely to be surpassed in capabilities by the iPhone 5 expected to be released in June and because you have to believe that AT&T is going to make a similar service available.

Verizon did not announce pricing for the data plans. Until they do, or until AT&T makes a move, there’s not much substance to talk about. Not that I’ll let that stop me! I had a lot of fun talking with Larry Sivitz at Seattle24x7 about the iPhone and my ebook on using it. Here’s the article.

Is your website ready for 2011?

Six quick and easy tweaks that can take your website or blog from looking sloppy and out-of-date to savvy and professional.

The start of the new year is one of the best times to touch up your website, blog, or LinkedIn page. I’m not talking about a big, expensive overhaul or redesign: I’m talking about quick and easy tweaks that can take you from looking sloppy and out-of-date to savvy and professional.

This checklist will point you in the right direction:

  1. Check dates. If you’re talking about something happening in 2010 in the future tense, or if you’re featuring a 2010 event on your “upcoming events” page, fix it — fast.
  2. Watch out for use of the word “new.” My ebook Take Control of iPhone Basics came out in October, 2010. I can probably get away with calling it “new” for another or month or so and then it’s simply “my ebook.”
  3. Check photos. If your website has pictures of your storefront taken three years ago, when the awning was a different color and you had a different sign out front, it’s time to get a new photo. Same with your own photo — you may have been cuter and slimmer five years ago when it was taken, but everything from the haircut to what you were wearing is probably dated.
  4. Scrutinize your client list and list of recent projects. This is the time to add the new capabilities you offer, list your most recent clients, and perhaps remove from the list former clients under new management, or who no longer use your services.
  5. Clear out the clutter — especially in your sidebars. Check your blogroll or links lists to make sure these websites are still active (you may be astonished to find out how many changed URLs or ceased operations). If you’ve added links to several videos, books or images, take a hard look at the page and prune it down to the one or two you most want people to visit.
  6. Finally, test all your links. It’s the Internet; things change.