Misleading web marketing hype lacks professional integrity
Keep one thing in mind, the marketing hype about driving web traffic to your site simply reveals the lack of understanding in how the web works. Keywords are all about attraction and search engines pull relevant web sites to the top spots. The process of gaining traffic is based on attraction. There is no known means of driving web users to your web site or any other web site.
"Making your web site stand out in a crowd" is another myth, or "Your competitor's web site is stealing your customers" is just more misleading sales hype. And what is worse is that many web designers believe in their own sales hype. But that's not all.
Web professionals perpetuate a number of falsehoods about the web and it makes me wonder why they keep the truth hidden? Do they not understand the nature of the web, or can they make more money selling a dream than selling a reality?
People love the idea of overnight success and when they are told this is possible it is a hard thing to resist. Sales hype like "I will drive traffic to your site, make your site stand out in a crowd and you can sell your products to the world!" is exactly what we all want to hear.
An honest web designer would tell you that overnight success can only be achieved with the deepest of pockets for massive advertising campaigns. However, the alternative web marketing method is low cost long term goals that build tangible results that are as natural as the seasons where planting seeds leads to the inevitable harvest.
Yuk, we want instant
We want to sell to the world and have tons of traffic buying products off the shelf like there was no tomorrow. But what we get with that fairytale is quite the opposite of what we were told. After a few failures at overnight success schemes we realize that had we chosen a long term goal we would be getting somewhere by now.
Our biggest problem is finding a web designer that knows about low cost pull marketing and is willing to design our site for such a purpose.
Design over marketing
Web designers are artists. They are not business people and they know nothing about your business. Even when you are asked to provide a description of your web market – like, is not that the question you want to ask them? – they immediately forget what you said and dive into creating a masterpiece you are going to love. And you will love it.
Your market, on the other hand, will not be impressed as they really do not care what your web site looks like as they are more concerned about what your web site can do for them.
You've paid for a web design that pleases you. BUT, does it work to be of service to your market? Well … probably not. Does it support your market? Does it help educate your market? Does it build trust and form relationships with your market? Oh well, but the home page sure looks good to you.
King Kong headers
They're everywhere and every web designer loves them. So what if it takes up all of the prime screen real estate, your web designer tells you it's the latest thing. So much for making your web site stand out in a crowd!
A King Kong web header is mostly meaningless. It takes up an enormous amount of prime screen real estate but does almost nothing. When these King Kong headers are repeated on every page your web site is being robbed of prime marketing space over and over again. Just the fact that the header on every page is repeated means that it does not have to be big at all.
Think about the terrific marketing that could use that space. Imagine calling out to your web marketing and naming their biggest problem. Is not that the headline news you would be better off with on your home page?
If it's all about branding then the King Kong header is not doing you any favors. A big city skyscraper is probably not your company image, but it may reflect your dreams. Would you pay for that image on a billboard or a newspaper ad?
Image sliders
This is pretty much the same issue as the King Kong header. A lot of branding and marketing space given up for repeated images that get old really fast. If the image slider does not have a specific marketing function then it is just robbing space.
Small font size
You spent a lot of time writing the best content for your market and the clever web designer sees all this text as ruining the artistic elements on the page. The solution is to make your best marketing information small and unreadable. You might think that the designer's real motive was to make the text blend in with all the artistic elements but you would be wrong.
Web designers destroy your marketing content because it competes for attention with their idea of a beautiful business web site. Doing business? Well, art is not business and a web designer is all about art. I know – been there done that.
Faded font – low contrast
This is a variation on how to destroy web marketing by making the text unreadable with yet another trick. You will be told that the faded text removes the jarring contrast and makes the web page more aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. Unless, of course, you want to read it.
Marketing and branding are once again under attack and the clever argument is that your web site has a great first impression, as though this will be how your market is won over. It's all nonsense to suggest that a first visual impression links your market and it is not the truth or the real intention of a web designer. They just do not want to take a backseat to the real marketing material. It's that simple.
Even if a web designer will not admit that they sabotage your marketing for the sake of design this is still the end result. We need to see through their arguments and protests because it was always their intention to have their artwork come first. After all, it is not your contribution to your own business web site that is going to muscle in on getting all the attention.
Thin content
You will be advised that less text is better. You know, just a few words about the product and description along with a price – that's good enough. Stop there. This leaves plenty of room for BUY NOW buttons and the all important "Call to action" on every page. This would be a web designer's contribution to web marketing.
Search engines look for quality and quantity when it comes to web content, and what search engines call 'content' is written text. It's rather interesting that this is exactly what your market wants from your web site also.
Who do you think might be right – Your designer or your market?
Do you really want to let your web designer off the hook for not providing you with a web design you can go to market with?
Honestly though, your business web design looks terrific – just do not expect it to help with your marketing
