Company websites are an opportunity to create solutions for a customer.
The website is not about your products/services and how great they are.
The website is about how your products/services solve problems/needs for customers.
The website is not about your many awards and achievements.
The website is about the customers that were satisfied to win those awards.
The website is not about keeping customers away from you by having a generic set of FAQs.
The website is about getting customers in touch with people that can answer questions.
The website is not about public relations copy and marketing spin.
The website is about communicating in real language with real people.
The website is not about company executive profiles.
The website is about reviews from your customers.
Company websites should be an eCommerce engine first.
If you have products to sell then they should be the lead on your website. The corporate stuff is secondary. I’ve seen some well known B2C brands use their brand name for eCommerce while the corporate site is linked and uses a different domain URL. The point is don’t make your customers have to find the shopping cart. Give them a shopping cart at the door.
Company websites should be simple but engaging.
The website is not about rows of words from your best copywriter.
The website is about delivering a message in a concise and simple way.
The website is not about layer upon layer of pages.
The website is about making solutions findable.
There is no cookie cutter template for the design.
The bottom line is that web site is your unique voice to your chosen audience. It’s about engagement, not broadcast. It’s about eCommerce, not prohibitive rules. It’s about solutions, not advertisements.
What’s a company website to you?
*note to readers and myself. I wrote this post as a collection of my thoughts and learnings about business. The website is just a tool and touchpoint that shows the beliefs a company has about it’s mission. But the post is about business not about websites. After I re-read my words I thought some might interpret this as a negative rant. But it’s really not. The post is collection of contrasting thoughts about a better way to make a connection with customers.