Grow My Law Firm

5 website mistakes you can and should avoid

I look at a lot of websites when I research competitors while doing positioning work for my clients, and I see a lot of websites that need help. Unfortunately many small businesses make the same mistakes. Are you guilty of any of these listed below?

1. Believing that your website should be under the control of your IT department. Your website is a function of marketing. It is one of the most prominent reflections of your brand and must be protected as a precious asset. I have yet to encounter an IT person who understands branding. Actually, web development is also a different skill set from IT, so it is unlikely that your IT department has the competency to build a website that is up to today's standards. You'll need a good web developer and a strong marketer working together if you want your web presence to be as good as it can be. Your website is your company's primary marketing vehicle. It is a 24/7 representation and usually the first destination when people hear about you. Can you afford to not present the best possible face?


2. Displaying content that is poorly written. Good writing is a skill that not everybody possesses, and web content writing is its own unique animal. Not only does your content developer have to be proficient in the rules of grammar and spelling, and respectful of tense and flow, but web content writers are specialists who know how to incorporate keywords for search engine optimization. They also know how to relax the feel while retaining a professional flair. They know how to cut out the fat and get to the point because they understand and appreciate the short attention spans of your visitors.


3. Allowing multiple departments to have control over web content. This can work sometimes, in the event that everyone has sufficient training and adheres to specific guidelines. But almost invariably, somebody learns a little HTML and decides that this would look pretty in pink, and this would stand out more bolded and in a different font. Then before you know it, people hardly recognize your company when they go to your website because everything looks disjointed. Pages are a mishmash of inappropriate creativity. This damages your brand by breaking the cardinal rule of consistency.


4. Launching a site, then forgetting about it. I'm sure you were very proud of what you accomplished when your site went live, but how long has it been since it was updated and refreshed? The evolution of web design is so fluent that old sites look really dated to anybody's eye. We all go to the same internet every day. We all experience new and exciting technology that constantly looks and works better. When we come to a site that is old, there is an instant discomfort, dislike, or dare I say, distrust. The visitor may feel that if you don't care enough about your own website, you might not care too much about his business either.


5. Building a website that is all about me, me, me. Clients don't care about you. They ONLY care about what they get from you. Read your home page and count how many times you use the words we, us, our, I, me, my, and mine. The actual number of times all of these words should be used is zero. Now look at the rest of your pages. Pretty much the only time you should be talking about yourself is on your about us page because that's the whole point of it. When people go there, they expect to read about you. The rest of the time, people want to know what they get when they hire you. They don't care how great your service is, how long you've been in business, or how wonderful you think you are. Tell them how your service will benefit them and how you can do that better than anybody else if you want to earn their business.

Website development is a specialty best left to the pros. You probably have a lawyer handle your legal work. You probably have an accountant handle your taxes. You probably have a doctor diagnose your illness. So does it make sense to trust your company's primary marketing vehicle to someone who isn't qualified to provide the best possible product on your behalf?

by: Christine Pilch
Christine@GrowMyCo.com
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Turbo Tax nails their position and branding

We're right smack in the middle of Turbo Tax's season, and boy, do they ever understand their own branding. They have positioned their product as the premiere do-it-yourself tax software and created various versions to accommodate personal needs. What really impressed me lately though is the tagline that they've been using in their advertising:

Choose easy.

I am not sure if that tagline is new or if I've just noticed it, but those two words do exactly what a tagline should do, nail down the customer benefit. Here, Turbo Tax captures the essence of one of their primary customer benefits, making it easier to do your taxes. You know what you get, your taxes done as easy as possible. What a relief! That is a powerful motivator to buy their product.

TurboTax has a very small window to make their money, and they have pulled out all the stops to make the most of their season. I haven't seen a mis-step yet. Whoever is guiding their brand strategy is right on the money.


by: Christine Pilch
Christine@GrowMyCo.com
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Damaging your brand by abusing your customers' confidence or trust

One of the quickest ways to antagonize your clients is to abuse their confidence or trust. This also holds true for organizations that abuse the confidentiality of their members' information.

A client of mine recently received a notice from his local Chamber of Commerce informing him that for the bargain price of $50, he could send a sales message or promotion in a Word document to the Chamber, and they would blast it out in an email to the whole membership. I'm not sure if they don't realize of don't care that many of the Chamber's members will perceive these messages to be spam. It's one thing to be informed of Chamber happenings and events by email, but it's an entirely different thing to use the organization's email list to spam the membership with solicitations.

So, since your brand is what you are perceived to be, what does such an action do to that Chamber's brand? Does this damage the delicate balance of trust? You betcha. Upon the first email delivery of a member's promotional message, that Chamber morphs itself into a spammer. Now this could work successfully if there was an opt-in for such messages, but the membership certainly didn't expect this when they shared their email address for the purpose of receiving Chamber news and updates.

That Chamber should also have a sophisticated email opt-out, enabling people to choose to receive only the kinds of messages they desire, but that's an after-the-fact band-aid, because the trust will have already been bruised by a push of spam.

The lesson here is to always turn everything that you're doing around and view it from the perspective of your customers. How will they perceive any individual marketing activity? Will they welcome it? Will they be leery of it? Why?

Your goal should be to always feed your customers exactly what they want. Always put yourself in their shoes first. Any marketing activity that brings in a few bucks while antagonizing clients is one that should make you pause.


by: Christine Pilch
Christine@GrowMyCo.com
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