The delegation of the narrative on your web site to your CMO and their team, with no follow through would be reckless. It would be like the WSJ firing Robert Thomson, managing editor and never replacing him. But looking at a random sample of web sites from small to large companies that is exactly what seems to be happening. There is no common voice. There is no common theme. It’s a collection of short stories written by disparate writers some clearly with more time on their hands than others.
To help, I suggest the CEO asks the following 10 questions to discover a better way:
- Who is the web site designed for and do we need more than one?
- What do you want the target audience to do when they arrive at your home page and can they?
- If I am a prospect, what the 3 most obvious questions I want answered quickly and can I?
- If I arrive on your site, no matter what the page, can I get to home with one click or go to where I wanted to go using a search box?
- If I read your home page, your about page and a few blogs, do I undertand the key principles that this company stands for? Is there a story worth telling?
- If I doubt the credibility of your company, does the web site address in detail your success stories with one click access?
- Can I find the leadership team driving the company and with sufficient detail to understand their quality?
- Is it crystal clear what your business does on the home page?
- Does your web site suffer from clutter? Does it desperately need curated?
- Does the response time compare favorably with the competition?
Clearly there a dozen more questions, some technical SEO based, some design based but starting with those 10 I could quantum leap a lot of web sites.
