How to Make Your Web Site Sing for You – New York Times
Scanning the daily headline email from the Times, I see this article by Eric Taub which essentially says that a corporate web site is important to its image and must be well written, filled with “addictive” content, and even includes the omnipresent Jakob Nielsen opining away.
WTF? Is it that slow of a news day that the Times has to dredge up the pablum we all had to endure in the mid-90s?
“Build a bad-looking small-business site filled with poorly written text, and your potential customers will go away. Build one that is attractive, compelling and clever, but crucial design mistakes will still guarantee that few people will know that the site exists.
Your Web site is like a digital business card, designers say, the first online look at your company that a customer gets. With luck, it will not be the last.”
sure, the story is stale, but think about how many websites – not just from small biz, but from really large corporations – still suck. You live it, but there are a bunch of marketing folks out there who still don’t get the joke.
I routinely have to explain that sort of thing to customers. There are tons of business sites (small and large) that are doing more harm than good to their owners.
A website is the one spot where a small company can compete with their larger competitors on a generally even footing. By being professional in all things, esp. initial points of contact, you become the go to resource.
Maybe they are trying to preach by stating the too-obvious?