Why Your Website isn't Working

The longer I’m in this website business the more it opens my eyes. A website is not the end, it’s only a means to it. Before online there was offline, but offline still ‘is’ and isn’t going anywhere. Online just added one more way of marketing your business and like offline has many options to do so: webpages, landing pages, social media, contextual advertising, sponsored advertising, all with the goal of bringing in more customers.

Like offline advertising, be it newspapers, brochures, flyers, billboards, radio, TV, or the guy with the mike driving his van bawling ‘Carite, Cavali, Racando…’ it doesn’t matter, all require proper thought an effort both in design and execution to make it work, and your website is no different.

By now, the technical side of building and configuring a website has become very easy for me, more a routine when I start a new one: register domain, buy hosting, activate domain with hosting, set up FTP (to upload files to the server), install WordPress, put up maintenance page, upload template, activate, install demo data (if available), swap demo with client info or set up basic pages from scratch and voilà, I should be done right?

WRONG. I’ve been yawning all the time doing the above which is only the initial set-up. The content I put it is what my client provided and I used it to frame up the site just to make it look like their own. It’s cliché but my work has only just begun.

Premium templates are naturally professional

I’m not going to discuss template versus custom design here as I proudly use templates. Other web designers can boast till they’re blue in the face that they don’t use templates, and I’d run, not walk from any web company that promises a custom designed and coded one for a comparable price.

Out of the box a premium template with demo content replaced with the real thing will give a professional look without trying— but that’s only in theory. In practice it gets botched with poor use of images, poorly designed image slides, poorly worded text (often sounding scripted with all the buzzwords thrown in for good measure), which defeats the purpose and is the assembly line, cookie cutter approach.

It’s not working because it’s not positioned to work

When your website gets lost in the sea of plain vanilla then you’re at a full stop before you start. Nobody is going to give you a second look.

It’s not for information purposes only

The ‘standard’ website as everyone expects is Home, About, Products, Services, Contact, and I don’t dispute that. Your website is not for informational purposes and only to say “we do this that and the other…”. It’s not only what you say but how you say it. There must be compelling reasons to become a customer, and if those are not front and center, and telegraphed properly, then you’re wasting your time.

A website is about star power

I don’t mean flashing lights and dancing monkeys giving sizzle and no steak. I agree that the website landscape in Trinidad & Tobago is replete with butt ugly websites but that gives you the opportunity to stand out and make yours truly shine. Star power doesn’t mean bells and whistles, you can’t fool Trinis that way but the right combination of style and substance shows that you’re paying attention to your site. Do you know that Trinis want to know that you actually give a damn?

A website needs a personality to build a relationship

People need to connect with a website. If there are five great sites at the top of search results each able to hold their own, then it would boil down to the connection one makes with the visitor. Each website ‘speaks’ in a different way.

It’s hard to explain but you’ve probably seen it yourself; some sites may have all the requisite info but may not click with you. Sometimes the message seems forced and un-natural, like the site’s trying to hard, like it’s faking it. Other sites you just gravitate to, it’s like they’re speaking to only you making you shake your head and say ‘that’s so me’ (like Forward Multimedia!)

Your website doesn’t win because of the design, it wins because of the web designer

This is my version of: “A trial isn’t won by the law, it’s won by the lawyers” and that’s so true (it’s from a movie, guess which one). A professional ‘look’ is only going to take your site part of the way. I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve seen using templates that I know where they came from that still can’t compete. The reason is simple: CONTENT.

But don’t fall for the ‘content is king’ cliché too. Content is not a commodity to compile and shovel into your site like coal in a furnace. Content is your real company woven and meticulously wrapped into every word, sentence and image on your website. How it’s framed: use of colors, images, columns, lists, tables, info boxes, buttons, links, menus, portfolio descriptions, it’s all in the eye of the web designer and not all web designers have the eye.

Inbound Marketing is the name of the game

NEW RULE: It’s inbound marketing baby! Not website design. The website is only the vehicle. Inbound Marketing is a methodology to not only to attract and keep customers, but to turn them into active promoters of your business. You know that a bad experience travels faster than a good one right? For Trinis good experiences at businesses are few and far apart. It’s not enough to attract and convert customers but give them something good to talk about. That free advertising can’t be quantified.

It’s not working because you’re not working it

If I said it once I said it a thousand times, you can’t set it and forget it. It doesn’t work that way (and it doesn’t work that way too if you get my pun). It takes a concerted, conscientious effort to keep your site ticking over. If you don’t, it will just die and all you’ll shrug your shoulders and say it’s a waste of time. I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve built for clients who started hot and heavy then left them to languish and get stale. But there’s nothing I can do, that part starts with you but it can end with me.