Have you ever been in one of those “conversations” where you
are doing all of the listening and none of the talking? And, after carefully
and patiently considering what is being said, make a comment of your own, only
to have the person you are talking to act as if you haven’t even spoken and
continue with their own monologue?
Many companies suffer from this same infirmity on their
corporate websites. They are fervently compelled to tell you everything about
their company, who they are, and how they got there. But, who’s listening? Who
really cares about your mission statement? This may be important to your
culture, but why do your prospects or customers need to see this? Shouldn’t
that be reflected in your products or services?
When you are trying to determine what it is that your
website should be saying, you need to pause and become a good listener. What is
it that your prospects and customers want from you? If you think about what
they want to know or what they might expect to do on your website, you can
probably get pretty close. A quick, cheap survey with SurveyMonkey will get you
even closer. And, after you get things up and running in the right direction,
you can do a few A/B tests to see if you can improve how you deliver
information and services through your website. Check your Google Analytics to
see what pages people are visiting and spending time on. Work on improving the
poor performers or removing them.
Now you are on your way to a very functional website.
Lou Powell
@vanicklou
