No more bells and whistles please. Just get to the point!
Even although there have been countless articles written about bad websites, the trend seems to continue. After all that’s been said about usability and web effectiveness nothing has changed.
A colleague of mine working for a biopharma company needed to find a contractor capable of handling their clinical trials. These types of studies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and thus can’t just simply be handed out to companies without doing appropriate research. Of course the most logical starting point is a search on the Net.
The first company had all the right information but there was nothing about their team or who the main researchers were. Was this a one person shop or a company full of technical experts? Next…
The second company located in Oxford, had staff pictures, but some of them were baby pictures. One guy didn’t even bother to comb his hair while one woman looked like a porn star! Even though this company may have thought that their tongue-in-cheek approach was funny, my colleague quickly dismissed them as freaks and moved onto the next Google listing.
Finally another failed attempt to find a suitable company resulted in a website that was packed full of information but the only way to get in contact with them was through a painstaking contact form. Not only are contact forms annoying to fill out and leave you waiting for an answer but most people don’t want to do business with companies who won’t reveal where they are located.
When creating your website it’s important to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. People don’t have time to read all of your “marketing speak”, go though your flash intros and fill out contact forms. Skip the bells and whistles, and get on giving your visitors what they need.