The industry is always buzzing with new buzzwords, marketing terms, and silly stuff for websites we don’t really need. Fortunately, many web designers have taken the steps needed to educate their clients and accounts to what works, what they need, and how to make it profitable instead of emptying their client’s bank account and budget.
In 2005, a lot of web designers were promoting various features as MUST-HAVE for websites, that really were not needed or used. In fact, unless the client has customers that need it, it was often useless and made a neat line item on the invoice you gave to the client.
So let’s take a look.
Testimonials
I always ask my clients for testimonials from their clients. These are great bits of information that work well on your website when injected with content. But often I get the response back “Well, I don’t collect any of that. Can you just make some up?”
No, I cannot make them up. Morality strikes again.
So I scour the web looking for customer feedback for my client on sites like yahoo, citysearch, yelp, etc. Rarely I find it. So I’ll get my own by interviewing customers, putting out survey cards, and just calling my client’s employees and asking some knowledge-based questions.
In 2005 : It was all the rage to have testimonials, and web designers just made them up and copied them from one site to another to save time.
In 2007: Testimonials are good, but not always on your site. The best place for testimonials would be on neutral review sites and local directories. That’s where I put my client’s testimonials if they are not already there and I link to them from my client’s website.
Job Listings
Every good business needs a place to post job listings and update it on their own. Normally I tie mine into the news updates or the blog. But in 2005 things were different.
In 2005: Often the job listings were on a static html page, requiring clients to call their web designer in to update it. Now this little trivial piece of work often incurred charges to the client that didn’t need to be.
In 2007: Job listings are still valuable to a website, but now content management systems, blogs, and such allow clients to update it without the web designer doing much work. But job listings really don’t need their own page any more. Most companies use online classified and job listing services to draw in new employees and talent. The job listing page itself has turned into an instruction list on what potential employees need for the interview.
Blogs
Blogs is a funny word. I was one of the people who initially rebuked blogging because I thought it was a personal, not a business tool. Well, time has a way of changing peoples minds.
Blogging has become a web must-have. Supplanting free-hosting and other online sites. In fact I get infuriated now when I see Fox News say “Blog this story on Fox News’ website” because I know that’s not blogging, that commenting! Curse you Fox news for making people stupid!
In 2005: Blogging was well underway, but few good systems existed for websites. Moveable Type and WordPress were giants (but wordpress’s developers clubbed movable type to death and used their eyes to make jelly). However, businesses didn’t see the value of it too much with mainly web companies using it.
In 2007: Blogging is something almost all websites MUST HAVE. It seems like today, your personal site must be a blog and your business has one to replace the news letter email and allow direct interaction with the customer. Hell, some sites dropped their news pages just to use a blog. good move.
Newsletters and Archives
Well well, to old mainstays of the web. The email newsletter was always a big ticket sale item for a website for me from 2000 to 2005. Clients demanded it thinking all their customers would sign up and get the email news sales and letters fast drawing in new business. Sadly, about six months after the newsletter started, my client would ask “Why am I not getting new subscribers?”
Answer: Because it’s outdated.
As for archives, they too fell aside to make room for newer technology.
In 2005: Your news page had an archive section, and maybe your help pages. Your newsletter also had one, but no one ever read it. Search engines loved it, however. It was content and they loved content, but the search engines would ask… “Why isn’t this site’s good content on their website?!”
In 2007: The archive sections and newsletter are all vanishing. Dropping like flies at the hands of a zealous pest control technician. In its place, for the newsletter is the acceptance of RSS feeds, podcasts, and blogging. Archives linger on, but at the service of your blogs having left its former master… The News Letter.
Directories and Link Pages
I remember getting emails all the time from people saying “Can you add my link to your page!” and clients asking for areas to link to their friend’s businesses. Plus a directory area for referrals. Now some of them had a good, solid reason to do so. Like a classic car dealership linking to transport companies and financing sites. Other sites didn’t. Like a bagel shop wanting to link to their brother’s foot care clinic.
In 2005: Linking and Directories were on the way out, they were being replaced with blog posts about other businesses or simply dropped because they hurt the company’s image, didn’t work for the site, or people stopped returning links.
In 2007: Linking and directories still struggle to find a place on the web, but most have been replaced by newer, more useful and interactive sites where people visit. Right now, links only serve the purpose of getting sites more backlinks for the search engines to score.
Newsfeeds
Newsfeeds have largely been replaced by RSS feeds and sites that propagate them. I don’t even need to do a comparison here. RSS feeds are great for your site, I’m actually considering make them a default item in my web design work.
Jokes
The web is way too serious, but thankfully the Web 2.0 movement has made it a good thing to have some humor on your website. Not everyone wants humor on their site, but an informal tone with some light jokes brings people together.
In 2005: Funny images and bad humor in the wrong places and a lot of serious content.
In 2007: Light humor and cute pictures in just the right spots with a informal, but meaningful content.
Case Studies & Success Stories
All to often this would get confused with testimonials and come out at some really bad, dishonest advertising. Case Studies and Success stories are not meant to stroke egos, but show clients your dedication to helping them succeed by showing them your other clients before and after.
In 2005: Often used to promote an unused service or inflate an ego and customers knew that making them largely ineffective.
In 2007: They are now used to demonstrate the usefulness of your technology and services. They are also used to show customers exactly how and what they get.
Reviews
Reviews are often a big deciding factor in smart buying and promoting your site.
In 2005: Asking your web designer to review your services/site/whatever and posting to your site isn’t a good idea because it doesn’t fly as being honest.
In 2007: Reviews must be done by an independent authority and never hosted on your site. You should link to it from your site, however.
Guestbooks and Feedback Forms
Both ways of getting valuable feedback, adding testimonials, and showing how new you are to the web.
In 2005: It became a well known fact that guest books were not proper for the commercial sites and on the way out for private sites. Comment scripts were coming back and feedback forms used a bit more than before.
In 2007: Guest books are officially dead. Blog comments have replaced guest books and most feedback forms as the main mehtod of getting customer feedback.
Forums
The great community tools of the web, forums stand as titans. They’ve been around forever it seems, but come and go as fast as used car dealerships.
In 2005: I still got requests from clients for forums on sites with little to no traffic while clients that needed forums to gather and pool customers failed to recognize the benefits of a forum because they feared their competition would exploit it.
In 2007: Forums are not requested much, with communities building up around blogs and at myspace & linkedin account instead.
Puzzles and Games
Offering something for people to do on your site while they had spare time was a neat idea. But a great idea was getting people to your site and returning to your site with great content.
In 2005: People did still add stupid little games to their sites for no reason except that it kept someone busy (like the boss’s 4 year old).
In 2007: Games have largely disappeared from sites with the exception of gaming websites. In its place, videos and purpose-driven content provides visitors with entertainment and fulfills a need.
Quotes
Quotes are good, especially if you are making a point. But random quote generators do not. Best used sparingly.
Articles
like reviews, articles can feature a service or product that your client wants to sell.
In 2005: Articles were often copied from promotioal materials and offered little in useful content.
In 2007: Articles are now used largely in blogs and on independent review sites making them useful once more.
Now if we can, as web designers, educate our clients to use newer technologies and innovate new ones ourselves, these old technologies from the past will fade away and people will start enjoying a web full of useful and meaningful content.
