Type and hit ENTER

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
GET CONNECTED

 

"Witty, clever and extremely relevant in these godforsaken Zoom times." Zoë Foster Blake

Book on sale now from Penguin Random House.

  • Home
  • Articles
  • About
  • The Book
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Subscribe Free
  • Advisory
  • Contact
Too much information: 5 things your website doesn’t need
Share
Articles

Too much information: 5 things your website doesn’t need

July 18, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Here let me read it to you. Best to listen straight off Spotify though, the browser version is buggy.


Building a labyrinth your customers get lost in

 

We just launched a new website. It’s a time to remind yourself that you are not the customer. Normal people don’t have the same insatiable interest in your company as you do.

When it’s new site time, it’s so tempting to keep adding more and more. Just because you can. It’s the same mentality as the 100-slide investor pitch deck, when the yes/no decision has already been made three slides in.

You can end up with an online encyclopedia that pleases all departments in your business. A labyrinth your customers get lost in. And a massive burden for whoever has to maintain the beast.

Our new site was an exercise in how little we can get away with. It’s not an approach that suits every business, and I’m not saying you should do it.

But you should ask yourself: does more information mean more sales?

Or is it a distraction, burying your core advantages beneath a mountain range of generic info-spam?

 

A potential client enters your website

Search: a rich source of the wrong customers

 

For years we worried about SEO and SEM. How did we rank for Audiovisual in each city? We’d have pages of copy jacked up with all the specific key words: Adelaide events, Brisbane video projection, Melbourne PA hire and so on.

Then we realised almost every search enquiry was a tyre-kicker, trawling for a dirty deal. Looking for three or four suppliers to email for a quote. If you’re a brand that’s never going to be that cheapest quote, that’s a problem.

Bonus problem for 2022: we’ve spent the last two years holding an amazing team together while others let staff go. Our sales people are also project managers, and now they’re out-of-control busy as the market gets back up to speed. New sales people are almost impossible to find as skills shortages bite hard.

For us, the best sales system is the one that wastes as little of our salespeople’s valuable time as possible.

The ideal result is to get them talking to people who already know a bit about us. It’s a blog piece for another day, but our view is that responding to RFPs where we are one on a list of six is an expensive waste of time.

 

The website is the last step of a longer strategy

 

So about eighteen months ago we committed to a long-term branding campaign. It’s a decent investment every month. Particularly when our market turned to shit for a second year running with the Delta variant shutdowns. But we believe in the margin-building value of long-term brand campaigns.

I’ve linked to this before, but if you haven’t seen it, watch this Mark Ritson brand ROI talk* It’s literally the most useful business presentation I’ve ever seen.

The brand campaign is underpinned by a lot of the principles of SEO/SEM, but uses more interesting video.

Our website acts as the final step in that awareness process. People have a look, recognise some of the images from the brand campaign, and their risk-averse, reptilian brains think: I’ve heard of them, this is a safe, low-risk option.

Everything we want them to know is on the home page.

From that point, our only goal is to get them off the site and in contact with one of our people. Who will come across as a reassuring, helpful person.

Obviously this suits products with a higher spend and a need for personal interaction. But even if you’re an e-commerce business, too much choice is a massive barrier to purchasing.

There’s even a law about the effects of information overload: Hicks’ Law**. Here’s a story on how that applies to UX if you’re interested.

Too much information: 5 things to cut

 

Whatever your product, there are so many common website elements you might not need.

 

1. Product information

 

Do your clients really need to know all the products you use or sell, and everything about them? If you’re Bunnings, yes, because those customers are doing all the work themselves.

If your business offers more service, is your real advantage that your people can listen to what the customer wants and  just make it happen? Without the client needing to know what’s going on behind the scenes?

Websites full of product can make you look exactly like your competitors, so price becomes the only differentiation.

And the more product information, the more your site becomes a maintenance monster, full of never-visited, out-of-date back alleys.

We are a technology company, and we used to have a big tech section. Now we have one short page.

 

2. Blogs

 

I can confirm it takes borderline personality disorder to keep a blog going beyond three months.

If you are a busy business person, you can’t do it yourself. Blogs are brutal in showing everyone when you last did one. And before you know it, that date will be years ago.

 

3. Unedited material

 

I spend as much time editing these stories as I spend writing them.

Business people think they can write. But it’s a big jump to writing stuff people will read.

There was a time when Google rewarded bulk wordage stuffed with keywords. That’s over.

Every word on that site has to justify its presence.

Hiring an editor/checker is well worth it. They’ll help you focus on what’s in it for the customer, rather than just things you’d like to say at great length.

They’ll add the line breaks that 2022 attention spans need.

An external eye really helps. One of our competitors, a world-class outfit, offers a stack of case studies on their site. One of them includes the actual words “(unsure if true)”.

I believe the point in question was true. These glitches are just what you get when your website gets huge, with contributions from everyone, and nobody has time to check before they hit publish.

 

Careers: when it’s your business you can write whatever you like

4. Forms with too many fields

 

Your marketing team would love more data to present in their Tuesday morning PowerPoint update. So they’ll ask customers to fill out seven fields for a simple enquiry.

Customers don’t want to fill out your forms, and they aren’t opening a bank account. If it’s not essential, don’t ask for it.

 

5. Mahogany Row

 

That Leadership Team submenu under About Us? Delete.

No customer gives a fuck who your CFO is.

And that’s enough words for today.

 


 

* Shout out to sales training king Mark McInnes for providing the video.

** I know a few readers who will wish it was Bill Hicks’ Law but no.

 

Got a comment?

I’ve stopped moderating the blog comments because I get like 50 Russian bot comments a day. But what would you have advised? Why not drop your comment over on LinkedIn?

And if this story was useful or entertaining for you, why not help me out by sharing it? It’s a ton of work getting these stories out, and more readers really helps me justify the insane effort each week. Bless you.

Why not buy this nice book?

 

Despite this week’s leadership changes at Booktopia, one thing remains constant over there. Every week since June 2021, my book is their #1 Review-Rated biz book.  Yes it’s Undisruptable: Timeless Business Truths For Thriving In A World Of Nonstop Change on Penguin Random House. On paper, electronic or audio book with me reading it.

Get it here:

 

Undisruptable Booktopia Review Ratings

Also I write a story each Tuesday, drop your email here to get it in your inbox.

For those of you in geo-blocked countries, here’s your non-Spotify audio:
https://ianwhitworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Website.mp3

 

 

July 18, 2022

Related News

Other posts that you should not miss.
Articles

Corporate astrology still rules executive jobs

August 1, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

No adult with a proven track record should have to do psychometric testing. One of many reasons to set up your own business.

Read More
August 1, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Articles

Do The Big Thing: The Problem With Atomic Habits

January 17, 2022
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Good daily habits are essential. They can also be a way to distract yourself from taking the big steps you need to be happy.

Read More
January 17, 2022
Posted by Ian Whitworth
Articles

How To Make Your Small Business Seem Bigger

April 26, 2021
-
Posted by Ian Whitworth

Plus some handy tips on how we used a dog to increase our margins for years to come.

Read More
April 26, 2021
Posted by Ian Whitworth
← PREVIOUS POST
The "too good to be true" trap and the lies businesses tell
NEXT POST →
Ask Dr Ian: what do I do about office space between WFH and skills shortages?
FREE E-BOOK

SUBSCRIBE
MOST POPULAR
  • Last-minute grocery businesses are a massive bag of dicks
    June 27, 2022

    It’s a business model that seems to have cherry-picked all the worst, hardest, most expensive elements of running a business.

  • Scotty Marketing
    3 post-Scotty lessons: good marketing is not like that
    May 30, 2022

    Don't be a product that people only buy once. How to make marketing a force for honesty and profitability in your business instead.

  • Undisruptable South Korea deal
    Undisruptable’s first international publishing deal
    January 31, 2022

    Undisruptable will see its first international release later this year and it's not in a country you'd expect.

  • “An Australian business classic.” Reviews of Undisruptable
    July 12, 2021

    The reviews are in and they are very good.

ABOUT IAN WHITWORTH

Ian Whitworth is a reformed advertising creative director turned entrepreneur with a successful national group of businesses that he doesn’t work in day to day. Read more

POPULAR TAGS
management
branding
Sales
Marketing
jargon
Persuasion
Covid 19
Nickelback
Pitching
Coronavirus
strategy
MBA
startup
Copywriting
Motivation
Business
CEO
Design
Graphic Design
Business Travel
Elon Musk
Frequent Flyer
David Attenborough
Advice
Lacey Filipich
Saxton Speakers
Scene Change
Penguin Random House
Gary Vaynerchuk
Sales Pitch
Tendering
Planning
Conversation Skills
Customers
Customer Service
AI
Shingy
LinkedIn
Simon Sinek
Success
Presentations
Mr Pigden
Motivators
Entrepreneur
Ian Wright
Archives
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Whitworth Communications 2020
Too much information: 5 things your website doesn’t need - Undisruptable