Several years ago, I contracted to develop a web site for a home improvement company.
Shortly after beginning the project, the owner killed it. We had a miscommunication, and he was upset with me. I apologized, but he just didn’t want to move forward with me anymore.
Recently, I was thinking about him and looked his company up on the web. He had a beautiful new web site. Really. Very modern, attractive.
But the site …
- Looked like every other pretty web site on the block
- Had zip humanity or personality — not even a staff page
- Wasn’t written well for sales — web pages need good copy writing
- Had numerous misspellings — unprofessional
- Formatting of text was dull
- Testimonials were weakly presented
- Local search engine optimization was woefully incomplete
That last point is very important. When I was working for him, I carefully explained how we would build and optimize specific pages to attract visitors from nearby cities in his territory. None of that was accomplished with his new site.
And I recall that the owner had a long family history in his business, which would give him credibility and color. None of that was showcased.
Easy Web Tip #124: It’s easy to think you have an effective web site if it’s pretty. But beauty is only skin deep … with people and with web sites. You need depth to outshine your competitors.
