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Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 10: Not Hiring a Writer to Get Clear, Crisp, Compelling Copy

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 29, 2010; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Communication, Design/Development, Information Architecture, Marketing; Tags: Communication, Information Architecture, Marketing, writing for web; No Comments

There’s a myth in website design that “no one reads the copy.” It’s not entirely true. While most of the people who visit your website will not read most of the copy, the few visitors who are really interested in what you have to offer will. If they’re really interested, they’re your best prospects. And even casual visitors scan your content (quickly), looking for a reason to get interested. If they don’t find it, of course, they’re gone.

Unless you have too much business (I don’t know anyone in that position right now), how can you afford to communicate with website visitors with anything less than clear, crisp, and compelling copy?

Building a great website requires several different skill sets

People tend to think of website design as either a technology project (for which they need a programmer or coder) or design project (for which they need a web designer). There is no doubt that both of those characterizations are partially true, and that people with those skill sets are critical to producing a great—or even adequate—website. But no matter how great it looks or how well it works, without clearly communicated and compelling messages, the site will yield disappointing results (you’d like some results, right?).

Many people pride themselves on their ability to write well. But writing for distracted and non-commital website visitors is a skill few people possess. In addition to being clear and compelling, a web writer must be concise. Using too many words to express a thought chases away all of your casual visitors and all but the most determined of your best prospects. A writer who can develop strong messages and write clear, compelling, and concise website copy should be on your speed dial.

You are not the best example of someone in your market

You’re an expert in your field. Few of your website visitors know a tenth of what you know about your products and services. Because of your expertise, you will make assumptions about what’s important to talk about on your site that won’t match up with what your visitors want or need to know. Website content should be organized and written for your visitors, not for you. It might be more elementary than you would write, but it’s important to communicate with your visitors in a way that helps them quickly understand what you offer. If they understand, they’re more likely to take action.

If a website visitor doesn’t take action, you’ve probably lost them

A skilled web writer can organize your content (information architecture) as part of creating a strategy for moving visitors toward action. That action might be registering for an email newsletter, downloading a whitepaper, or placing an order. For non-profit organizations, it might be making a donation or volunteering. Most people do not arrive at your website with the intention of placing an order or taking the next step toward becoming a customer. If they do so, it’s because the information on the site convinced them. If they’re not convinced, the likelihood that they’ll return to check you out again is small.

A good web writer is good at organizing and delivering copy that convinces people to act. As Elvis Presley once sang, “a little less talk and a little more action.”

A caveat: blogging is different than “writing for the web”

Beyond the ability to write clearly, writing blog posts does not require the same skills described above. Blogging is more of a conversation, a chance for people to get a sense of who you are and what you think. If you’re a bit wordy, no problem. If you want to talk about things only experts in your field will fully grasp, go for it. Lots of successful bloggers cannot write copy that leads website visitors to take action other than leaving a comment. That’s OK because that’s not the goal of (most) blog posts. Just don’t assume that, because someone has a blog and writes “on the web”, that they can write “for the web.”

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 9: Having a Print Designer Design Your Website

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 9, 2010; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Information Architecture, Usability; Tags: Accessibility, Design/Development; 2 Comments

It’s amazing to me that this still happens with a fair degree of regularity. It would seem obvious that print and the web are two distinct mediums requiring different expertise. But unfortunately, it’s not uncommon. Design-is-design-is-design to many people, and many of them continue to think of web design as “on-screen graphic design.” I’ve discussed this before. It has nothing to do with whether or not print design or web design is “harder” or “better,” but how they are “different.” Asking a print designer to design a website is much like asking an interior designer to redo your landscaping: different expertise and understanding is required. It’s also not the best idea to ask a web designer to design your annual report.

Before I go further, let me say I have worked (and continue to work) with some print designers who understand there are differences and do their best to approach web design differently and accommodate the needs of website visitors. They generally have accepted the fact that web pages must accommodate many different browsers and system settings, and that their work will not display uniformly to everyone who sees it. They recognize that on the web, information is more important than packaging if it comes down to a choice between the two, and they try to avoid ”designing in“ accessibility or usability issues. They take advice about aspects of their design that are problematic from a usability or information architecture perspective. I like working with those designers and in fact, they often push me to do things outside my “comfort zone,” which often leads to me learning something new.

What’s more important: design or information?

Many print designers see the web as a hostile environment for their visual “designs,” which they hold as the most important aspect of web design. It bothers these folks mightily that they cannot absolutely control how their design is rendered in visitors’ browsers. They have little or no understanding of how (or why) to provide for these differences, and often as not, cause usability or accessibility problems trying to control the “user experience,” by which they mean “visual experience.” There are still print designers (in 2010!) who set paragraph or headline text in photoshop and display text as images on their website (how else to make sure that everyone sees your carefully kerned 11.5 point Museo Sans on 18 point leading?).

But while visual design is important (I’m a designer too, and I believe in the power of design to influence thinking and behavior), it’s pointless if the ability for visitors to find, access, or utilize the information is compromised. The fundamental idea of the web is the ability to search and find relevant information. Design that interferes with that is not only a waste of time, but destructive to the purpose of your website. Good web designers understand that and learn techniques and design approaches that preserve and even enhance usability and accessibility.

Should an interior designer design your landscaping?

Even if you really like and trust your interior designer and you love what they can do to a room with color and fabric, do you really think he or she has an understanding of plants, soil, drainage, etc., that will result in a satisfactory landscape? They may love a nice landscape, and relish the challenge of working in a new medium, but the most likely reality is that there are big gaps in their landscape design expertise that you will have to live with in the finished landscape.

As with the example above, rarely do websites designed by print designers live up to expectations of usability, interactivity, search engine-friendliness, or information architecture, regardless of how nice they might look. The understanding of the web and expertise to leverage its ability to communicate, inform, and persuade is simply not present. Good web designers offer these things along with beautiful and functional design.

The above image represents my primary point that, while there is some overlap in knowledge and skills between print and web design, there are large amounts of knowledge and skill required for each discipline that are not common. There are, no doubt, some designers who have mastered both areas, but they are unusual and rare. While I started my design career in print, after focusing on web design for at least a decade, it’s difficult for me to change my perspective back to that required for really good print design; my design mindset no longer supports that perspective. I know from working with print designers that they have similar problems adjusting to a web perspective.

Bottom line: find a good web designer and put them in charge of your website design or redesign. And if your favorite designer is a print designer and you really want him/her to design your website, insist that they find a good web front-end developer to team with. You’ll get better results in how the site serves your visitors, which means your website goals are much more likely to be realized.

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 8: Creating Barriers to Downloading Free Information

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 26, 2009; Category: Accessibility, Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Marketing; Tags: Information Architecture, Marketing, Usability; No Comments

Giving away stuff on your website is a really smart thing to do. It’s an opportunity to spread your ideas or information about your products and services, sometimes in exchange for a little bit of information that could be helpful in your marketing. It’s a very simple process, but companies screw it up all the time, usually by one of the following two methods.

Screw-up Number One

Too often, companies undermine their attempts to offer free information (whitepapers, product info, sample book chapters, etc.) by requiring onerous amounts of personal or contact information in return. You’ve probably seen this, and maybe even been guilty yourself (I confess, I’ve done it). In exchange for a lousy whitepaper, I have seen people asked for ALL of their contact info (including their work phone, home phone, cell phone, and Twitter ID), their job title, their preferred salutation (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr., Professor) and their underwear size. OK, I made up the last one, but it does get intrusive after the third piece of info. By the time people finish and submit the form (IF they finish), that whitepaper had better be damned good.

Screw-up Number Two

Another way to blow it is with poor execution. I recently got an offer in an email newsletter I’m subscribed to for a free chapter download for a just-published book. I need another web design book like a hole in the head, but I was game to find out if there might be a reason to spend almost $30 on this one, so I clicked on the download button. That did not start a download. Instead, it took me to a page that asked for my email so they could email me the download info. While I didn’t consider their request for my email address to be too much to ask, the button had said "download," and I found it a little disturbing that it wasn’t what happened. I also wondered why, if they had my email address to send me the newsletter, they needed it again to send me the download info. Why didn’t they just send me the download info to begin with?

I dutifully typed in my email address and clicked "submit." That took me to a page where they offered me several newsletter subscriptions, all preselected as "yes," including the one I already had. I clicked on the link that said "No thanks, I’m just here for the free book chapter." That took me to a page that promised to send me a download link. Two days later, I’m still waiting for that download information. I don’t think I’ll go back and make the request again: I just saved nearly $30.

Giving stuff away is not rocket science, and unless you’re a government supplier, your customers are probably not rocket scientists. So don’t make it difficult. And keep the information you ask for to a bare minimum. Your visitors will never hold it against you if you ask for too little information.

Part 7, Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies: Failure to Install or Monitor Site Analytics

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Feb 15, 2009; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Marketing; Tags: Business, Google Analytics, Marketing, Web-based Applications; One Comment

You would think that a company that puts many thousands of dollars into its website would want to track website results to find out how many unique visitors it gets, where they come from, what content is most read, and dozens of other useful bits of information that have the potential to inform smart decisions about the company website and provide clues about how to increase its effectiveness. If so, you would often be wrong.

Many business websites have no analytics packages installed, other than whatever the webhost might offer as a standard package. In many cases in which an analytics package is installed, there is no regular monitoring of the data or any attempt to use it to guide decisions about the site. Why is this? There are probably far more reasons than I am aware of, but here are the big three that I hear again and again:

We don’t get any traffic.

Understood that it can be demoralizing to look at evidence that your website or blog is not drawing the crowds you’d envisioned. However, looking closely at the data can give you clues about why that is the case, and perhaps clues about how to build on the traffic you’re getting. Of one thing I’m certain: not looking at the statistics because they aren’t what you’d hoped is a good way to make sure they stay that way.

We don’t have time to look at the data.

I have to admit this one usually finds me with no response, often with my jaw dropped, searching for socially acceptable words. People find or make time for what they consider important. If information that can help your website become a more effective marketing tool isn’t important to a business in a recession…

We don’t want to spend money on an analytics package.

Google Analytics is free, and it should be considered the bare minimum in site analytics. When you think you need even better information (along with other assistance in increasing site effectiveness), there are packages available for a fee, such as those offered by Hubspot and Compendium, which should be considered investments, if you are truly serious about increasing your site performance.

If you’ve heard other "reasons" offered for not utilizing analytics, or if you have particularly good responses to the ones above, please share them here. Maybe, with your help, I won’t be sitting there with my mouth open next time I hear one of them.

For more posts in this series, see the “Bad Websites/Good Companies” category at right.

Part 6, Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies: Too Much Stuff on the Home Page

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jan 21, 2009; Category: Accessibility, Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Marketing; Tags: Accessibility, Design/Development, Marketing; No Comments

You’ve seen those homepages with 3 product lead-ins and 2 giveaways and NEW!!! special pricing and the latest news and a billboard about what the company stands for and the mission statement and a picture of the CEO and an announcement about the company picnic and a picture of the dog by the sales manager’s daughter (no wait, that’s the refrigerator door) and a newsletter signup and a see-us-at-the-tradeshow blurb and a call to action to download a whitepaper and a partridge in a pear tree, all thrown up there in an ad hoc manner.

You’ve seen those right? And about half of the items have a "look at me" graphic or heading shouting for your attention? How long did you read through all that stuff to see if there was something you wanted to click on to find out more? Zero seconds would be the most common answer. Overwhelming amounts of information on a homepage, especially when all or most of it is competing for attention, drives visitors away.

So why do we see homepages like that? When I’ve had an opportunity to see what’s behind those situations, it almost always turns out to be a combination of two things. One, there is no real vision or strategy about the role the website should play. And two, whoever is responsible for the website (IT, marketing, whoever) has a "weak sister" status within the company, for whatever reason, which undermines their ability to do anything about thing number one. This creates a situation in which all the divisions or departments in the company (sales, HR, engineering, marketing communications, etc.) insist on getting their stuff placed in a Very Important Place on the website. Lack of a plan or policy creates a "vacuum" which sucks all that information onto the homepage.

See, it’s really just physics. And lack of priorities that comes with not having a strategy.

So, how many things should be on a company website homepage? It’s not really about the number. What it’s about is having items on the homepage that support the website strategy. And nothing else.

Get a strategy, get strong support for the strategy from the CEO/President, and the "how many" question (and the "can you put this on the homepage" questions) will go away.

For more posts in this series, see the “Bad Websites/Good Companies” category at right.