New Web Page Trends

A trend back to high bandwidth graphic front pages?

IMHO I think you are seeing what all of us see. I also visit about 200 new sites a week as I try to keep up with the submissions for our award. I have not seen any new trends in NEW SITE structure over the past 18 monthsthat I have been compulsively on the web.

New sites, both business and personal, all seem to start (well, not all, but certainly most) in the same place. They try to build a Coooooool site. Lots of black screens with big, graphic-designer-portfolio graphics having little or nothing to do with either marketing or their business. The sites are so cool nobody can find anything on them and they do more damage than good to the public image of the company they were built to help. Do you really want 'cool' from the company that supplies your pacemaker?

Next comes the second phase of the project. The site is barren of both traffic and results. Only a small portion of the visitors drill down to even the second level of the site, and nothing good is seen to come from being on the web. The decision is made to hire a different group of consultants to 'fix' the problem that was
created by the group of consultants hired by the late marketing manager.

The new person tasked to 'fix the web site' will take a different direction based on his/her background.

The most likely second phase is to hire a more expensive graphic designer that is not a cousin of anyone in the company. This designer will immediately see that the entire problem can be traced to the failure by the 'untrained designer you hired last time' to include all the major food groups on the home page graphic. Yada, yada, yada. More, brighter, bigger graphics throughout the site. It literally glows in the dark even with the monitor off. Company exits web muttering 'The web is populated by nerds and geeks who have no sense of taste. If we have to play down to their level, I'd rather get off the web!'

If the unlucky new 'webmaster' is the IS manager, a group of programmers will be hired to develop a technically more sophisticated site with lots of bells and whistles and make a few minor changes to the graphics of the late site. This site, created by the soon-to-be-late IS manager will dazzle everyone but the visitors to the site. Company exits web with moans of 'See, I knew nobody was making any money on the Internet.'

The third, and least likely scenario, is the decision to put a task force together from the company to learn about the web and implement a plan. This group first talks to some graphics people, then some programmers, and then, finally, some people who have actually built effective web sites that meet their stated goals.

This last group are known as webmasters. Together with a qualified webmaster they will build a site with a simple and obvious navigation theme, fast and relevant graphics, and lots and lots of content. The site will be a hit because it delivers on its promise: information at your finger-tips presented in a friendly, professional environment by a company that cares about you and your patronage.

These are the sites that 'make it' and we see all over the web in far too limited a number. The site will hang around for a long time, not because it is aging and needs to be changed, but rather because it works. Instead of blindly rebuilding their site for no apparent reason, they are busy reaping the benefits of swelling traffic counts, and cashing lots of checks.

This is the 'new concept' that you mention. It is not a new concept. Companies have always made the same mistakes mentioned above in their marketing on TV, radio, print, and collateral materials. The handful of startups that last through the burning out process of free enterprise business are the ones that last long
enough to get it right. On the web it is just more visible to more people. And we know about 'web years', right?

To those of you who (whom?) I have taken advantage of in my attempt to interject a bit of humor (IS Managers, Graphic Designers, Marketing Managers, Nerds, and Geeks) be aware that I have held
those very titles at one or more times in my life. Lighten up and try to get the message content and look past the stereotypes I made use of. But, if you really want to flame me, have at it. My flame responder is getting rusty, especially when switched to full auto.

This article was written by Jim Wilson of VirtualPROMOTE