10 Bitter Facts About Corporate Websites – Part 2

6. Your Website Is Not All About You

Where some website managers want their website to suit everybody, others want it to appeal to themselves and their colleagues. A remarkable number of organizations avoid their users entirely and base their websites excusivley on an organizational outlook.

A website should not cater to the preferences of staff but should comparatively meet the needs of its users. Too many designs are jilted because the boss “doesn’t like green.” Likewise, too much website copy contains acronyms and terms used only within the organization.

7. You’re Not Getting Value From Your Web Team

Whether they have an in-house Web team or use an external agency, many organizations fail to get the most from their Web designers.

If you want to get the maximum return on your Web team, present it with problems, not solutions. For example, if you’re targeting your website at teenage girls, and the designer goes for corporate blue, suggest that your audience might not respond well to that color. Do not tell him or her to change it to pink. This way, the designer has the freedom to find a solution that may even be better than your choice.

8. Design By Committee Brings Death

The eventual emblem of a massive institution’s access to website administration is the committee. A committee is generally assembled to gear the website because in-house politics demand that each one has a say and all debates be taken into account. Nevertheless, when it comes to design, committees are often the deathblow.

Because committee members have different opinions about the design, they look for ways to find common ground. One person hates the blue color scheme, while another loves it. Miserable, this leads only to dull and a boring design that neither appeals to nor amazes anyone.

9. A CMS Is Not A Silver Bullet

Many of the clients have amazingly unrealistic expectations of CMS (content management systems). Those without one think it will solve all of their content burden, while those who have one wail about it because it hasn’t!

It is assuredly true that a CMS can deliver a lot of assistance. These include:

• reducing the technical hurdles of adding content,
• granting more people to add and edit content,
• promoting faster updates,
• And admitting greater control

However, many CMS are less pliable than their owners would like. They fail to meet the developing demands of the websites they manage.  Eventually, a CMS may allow content to be easily updated, but it does not ensure that content will be updated or even that the quality of content will be acceptable. If you look to a CMS to solve your website maintenance issues, you will be balked.

10. You Have Too Much Content

Chunk of the complication with content maintenance on large corporate websites is that there is ample of content in the first place. Best of these websites have “evolved” over years, with more and more content having been added. At no stage has anybody analyzed the content and asked what could be taken away.

Many website managers stuff their website with copy that nobody will read. This arises because of:

• An anxiety of missing something: by putting everything online, they believe users will be able to find whatever they want. Unfortunately, with so much information available, it is hard to find anything.
• A concern, users will not understand: whether from a shortfall of assurance in their website or in their audience, they feel the need to supply endless instruction to users. Unfortunately, users never read this copy.
• A frantic desire to gain confidence: they are desperate to sell their product or communicate their message, and so they inflate the text with sales copy that actually transports little beneficial information.