It amazes me how some people can fully understand the difference between nice graphic designed print material and bad graphic designed print material.  They can pick the poor one out in a second.  However, they can look at their 10 year old website and say that it still looks fine and do you think we need to change it.  Last client I was into see I felt like an optometrist, what looks better site A or site B, again A or B.  He got it but it took a little convincing. 

My business partner. always says to use the print test and no this does not mean how print friendly your entire site is.  It means could you take the front page of your website and print it out and make a nice glossy print promotional piece.  If you would not be comfortable in doing this then why would you be comfortable in leaving it online and representing your company.  I am sorry but lets wake up here, websites are generally the first place people look these days when they hear, get referred or search for service and find your company.  You have a few seconds to either impress them with your brand or disappoint them and create a disconnect between what they heard before and what they see online.  Your web presence is just going to get more and more important.  As each day goes by there are fewer and fewer bad sites out there (don’t get me wrong there are still a lot of really bad sites) my point is that as sites get re-done they are being done properly and by professionals instead of one man basement dwellers.  There will be a day when all the sites that are visited on a consistent basis are professional and ugly sites are just not acceptable.  Online marketing is an evolution and it is still a very young industry (15 years) think of where cars were 15 years from the day the first car was manufactured.  Think of where they are now.

Once again thanks for listening.

This entry was posted by John McDonald on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.