Small Business Websites
Yesterday I read a very interesting article in the USA Today about the 7 Deadly Sins of Website Creation. The article (actually entitled, ‘What should a small business’ website do?’) talks about just how important a good website is for a small business. After reading it, I couldn’t agree more. A while back the local paper published a story about how the writer was able to set-up a sufficient website for a local business completely free of charge using wordpress.com, and I was pretty appalled at the article. I knew it clearly wasn’t written by a professional web developer, just a hobbyist. In any case, I took this article to my students to see what they thought about it and to get their thoughts on websites in general.
First, let’s talk about the article. The 7 Deadly Sins are: Making the site nothing more than a billboard, Not having a great “About” page, The site contains mistakes, The site lacks further connection (to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), The site is not search engine friendly (SEO), The site lacks video, The site’s pages lack a call to action. I’m not going to restate the article, but each of these points is dead on (though I’d argue that most sites don’t need video). People go to a website looking for information: about the company, about the company’s services, how to contact people at the company. It needs to be a bit interactive, even if that interactivity is just a web form users can fill out. A Call to Action is key because it gives users a next step in the process. By connecting to other sites like Facebook, it also extends the reach of the website to other mediums. And of course, the website needs to be findable by search engines.
When I took this article and some questions to my class, I got some interesting and unexpected answers. The biggest surprise was that they didn’t feel it imperative for all businesses to be on Facebook or Twitter. Even though they use it everyday, they felt it definitely should not replace a website, but that in many cases it shouldn’t even supplement one. I disagree a bit here- if anything, it helps the website’s content reach a different audience- though they did make some good points. It was very interesting to hear that some avid users of Facebook feel there should be a separation of recreational social networking and professional websites. Some even said if they see the Facebook icon on the website, they’d view it as unprofessional (in specific cases). It also shows that, for my class of 20 or so anyway, they don’t use Facebook to get all of their news/updates- they use it primarily for fun.
There is also a de-emphasis on videos and blogs in most cases- none of them regularly read blogs, and the consensus I got about videos is that they are pretty annoying, especially if they autoplay. If there is to be a video on the site, it should not replace or repeat textual content, it should supplement the content. A couple examples are a virtual tour, or a video portfolio. I tend to agree here. I feel most people browsing the web are also listening to music or doing something else, and that a video that automatically plays is intrusive.
The final major point we talked about was content vs. design. A little more than half the class put a stronger emphasis on design over content, citing that if the site is really poorly designed they weren’t sticking around for the content. Most also said that the design doesn’t need to “wow” them as long as it’s clean, organized, and the information is easy to find. They really cared about the User Experience the most. Smart!
I ended the very successful class discussion by putting them on the spot and asking them to critique my website for Manifest Development. I got some really great feedback, and they helped debunk some assumptions I made about how people use the site! I will probably make those changes in the coming weeks (once my workload lightens a bit and I complete a side project I’ve been working on).  All-in-all, I feel this was one of the best class discussions I’ve had and as usual, I learned some things as well.