We quite often have clients that come to us and ask for a simple website. We really appreciate that because a big part of our job is to help clients simplify the vision and the specifics of their company for presentation on the web. This simplification process can take a lot of time.
Why Simple is So Hard to Achieve:
- You have to show your value in a very powerful and concise way. The value proposition must state who you are, what are you offering, what differentiates you from your competition and what is the next step. Getting that narrowed down to a few short statements is not always easy.
- Unless you have an e-commerce site, the objective of your website is not to sell your services or products. Your primary objective is to encourage your visitors to reach out to you. In this case, too much information can be very dangerous. You should have just enough information to build the perfect amount of interest and encourage them to pick up the phone or fill out a contact form. It can be very difficult to decide what information will keep visitors engaged and encourage them to stay on your website longer.
- Most companies have a variety of types of clients that they are appealing to. We refer to these demographics of clients as “visitor classes” on the web. We find that most companies have 4-6 visitor classes that comprise about 80% or more of their visitors. Each of these visitor classes have different reasons for coming to your website and it can be very tricky to appeal to each class while, at that same time, not turning away others.
Remember, you have less than 20 seconds to connect with your website visitor when they land on your website. If they feel even slightly overwhelmed, they will probably leave. It is very important to keep things simple!
