If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is your website worth?
Did you ever stop and ask yourself this question?
If not, you probably should!
As I had mentioned in a previous post months ago, there are two key factors to consider when you publish a website online. One is that it can be indexed by the search engines and position well and two is that the site looks good and is user friendly. In this post I will not take the time to address the first part of that equation but will attempt to take on the second part concerning your website’s appearance and usability. In future posts I will try to address search engine optimization but for now lets talk about your website itself and how a user may react to it when they visit it for the first time.
I want to take the time to cover this topic because I notice that a lot of small business owners don’t invest as much into their website as they do some other forms of advertising such as print advertising which may consists of the yellow pages, a newspaper or a local magazine. Though these forms of media serve their purpose, they tend to be pricey, target only a specific demographic and are quickly becoming dinosaurs in the realm of advertising. I have had people contact me requesting a quote and during our conversation they tell me what they are spending on their yellow page ad but when I quote them a price they respond by saying that it is too much. Maybe it is simply because they do not fully understand the value of their website. Let me pose this question to you, if someone is spending $1,000 per month on a yellow page ad which results in $12,000 per year to run that ad every month, is it too much to spend $1,000 or maybe even $2,000 one time to have your website designed and developed without the ongoing cost like that associated with running a yellow page ad? I think the answer to that question is a no-brainer, but some don’t seem to look at it this way. So this is what I will address in this post.
If Looks Could Kill?
I can not stress the importance of this enough because your first impression counts the most. First impressions can tend to have a lasting effect on folks and a lasting effect on your business as well. Even though print advertising like the newspapers and the yellow pages still exists in our hi-tech society today, they no longer has the same effect that it once did. They themselves know this and that is why they are scrambling to become relevant once again. The up and coming generations are more familiar with electronic media such as computers, cell phones and other hand held electronic devices. A 20, 30 or 40 something year old today may not be as apt to grab a phone book to find a business or a service that they are looking for, they are more likely to pull out their iPhone or netbook and Google it. So this in turn could mean that you are missing out on a whole demographic if you limit yourself to the old way of doing things or at least apply an emphasis on it. Keep in mind that many young professionals today will most likely use electronic media such as their computer to find a service they are looking for or to purchase a pair of shoes, a television or a car. They may very well use their computer at work on their break since many couples today both work long hours. This is something to consider and keep in mind when it comes time to create your website.
To make my point even clearer let me give you an example, when I was growing up (I’m now in my forties) we had one phone book and no cell phones. Today you may have five or six different phone books each published by different companies and most people rely on their cell phone, many people don’t even have land lines anymore and if they do it may be Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP – i.e., Vonage, Brigthouse, etc.). What this means is simply that your web presence is far more valuable today than your print presence. If someone doesn’t have a land line, they will most likely not even receive a phone book, so you could be wasting your money right there. I passed by a garbage dumpster not to long ago at an apartment complex and even saw stacks of phone books piled high laying right beside the dumpster. Talk about throwing your money away! On the rare occasion that I myself may use a phone book (believe me it is rare), I still am drawn to the ads that have a web address so I can first view that company’s website and determine even if I want to call them, this helps me to narrow my search for what I am looking for and to avoid all those annoying prompts you have to go through when calling most businesses today. If I visit a website and it looks like it was made in the year of the flood, I immediately click off of that site and go to another. That website gave me the impression that the owner really doesn’t care about their business so they most likely aren’t going to care about me. Now maybe they do care but just don’t care about their website, nevertheless it left me with a bad impression.
Let me give you an analogy which may give you a clearer understanding of what I am trying to say. Imagine that you are seeking to hire a cleaning company and two representatives from two separate companies come to your home to give you an estimate. The first pulls up in an old car that is missing the back bumper and looks like it has never been washed. The representative gets out of the car and comes to your door, his appearance is not at all appealing. He has his shirt hanging out, his pants are dirty, he has long hair and he hasn’t shaved. Let’s admit it, if you are honest with yourself most likely at this point the last thing you are thinking of doing is letting this man into your home. You have pretty much already made up your mind before he even gets to your door that you are not going to hire him to clean your house. Nevertheless you are nice to him and tell him politely that you are no longer interested in his services. He no sooner gets into his old car and pulls away leaving an oil stain in your driveway when the other representative pulls up. He is driving a newer vehicle that appears to have just been to the car wash. When he gets out of his car you quickly notice that he is clean cut, his shirt is tucked in, he recently got a hair cut and he has shaved, so you decide to hear him out. You invite him into your home to give you an estimate and decide to hire him to clean your house. My point here is simple, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish! Don’t skimp on your website when it may be the one thing you should be spending more money on. In today’s society your website will most likely be the first impression that someone gets of you and if your website looks bad, what kind of image of your business do you think that will project to your potential customers. If looks could kill, they most likely will kill your business if your website doesn’t look good!
Where Do I Go From Here?
As important as the appearance of your website may be, the usability is just as important. Have you ever visited a website and found yourself interested to learn more about what it is they are offering but you can’t seem to figure out how to navigate your way around the site? This is a good example of a website with poor usability. Nothing frustrates me more than visiting someone’s website and I can’t easily find my way around the thing or I click on a link on one page only for the entire navigational menu to disappear on the next. You must make it very easy for your visitors to be able to navigate your site and this is easily achieved. If you do not do so, again you are sending a message that you simply don’t care about your customers. You should include a main navigational menu at either the top of the page above, below or within the header or in a sidebar conspicuously displayed so that no one can miss it. This menu should also appear the same on each page so that the user can easily navigate their way around your site. It is alright to have additional menus for sub-pages appear on certain pages or in certain sections of your website, but your main navigational menu should always be there. I know that this sounds like a no-brainer, but you won’t believe how many sites I come across that simply do not implement this basic functionality.
Another thing you want to avoid is too much copy or information on one single page, unless you are running a web portal site such as msn.com or yahoo.com. Most small business websites should offer concise copy on each page specific and relevant to that page’s title and topic. This not only makes your site user friendly, it also makes it search engine friendly. If you have a lot of information you want to include about a product or a service you offer, you may want to consider breaking it up into sub-pages so that the user can quickly find exactly what they are seeking and not get frustrated and click off of your site. This is where you may want to use a sidebar menu for child pages of a parent page. Remember, we live in a push button society today that seemingly has very little patience and wants everything yesterday. So keep it simple, less may be best in some cases, try not to give the user information overload as this may cause them to look elsewhere.
Counting The Cost
Like anything else in life, if you are going to run a website you should first count the cost as to whether or not you have the time, know how and money to do so. If not, I argue that it may be best that you do not do it at all as it may actually result in hurting your business rather than helping it. Though I personally feel that if you are going to run a business in today’s world you should have a website, not just for the sake of having one but in order that you may reach that whole demographic I described earlier in this post. It may be best for you to hire a firm such as ours to do this for you if you are unable to to so on your own effectively. Either way, you should first count the cost before taking on such an endeavor and determine whether or not you have what it takes to do so and do it right!
by John O’Hara – owner of Visual Symmetry
