Mike Arauz is a strategist at What's Your Website For?
Websites built for marketing purposes are often built for the wrong reasons and fail to serve the needs of the client and the audience. The wrong reasons are often to impress executives or board members on the client side, to keep a company in business on the agency side, or just to win awards.
Yesterday I asked this question on Twitter, "Are websites still important?" (I wasn't going for nuance.)
As Ivan Askwith responded, "In a very limited sense, it's like asking if "books still matter." Websites have a massive range of functions and content."
True.
But.
I can't get this chart out of my head.
(From MTV Asia Being Young on slideshare)
This chart shows the average number of websites visited regularly by young internet users in different countries around the world. According to a 2007 MTV study, young web surfers in the U.S. only visit an average of 7 websites regularly. Though the data may be old, I think the basictrend point still stands. People are visiting fewer websites. People visit relatively few websites, and your branded microsite isn't going to be one of them.
So websites are important, but only to the extent that they are able to create a platform for information/content sharing and connecting with other people. Look at the sites that are the most popular: Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, iTunes, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube. They succeed by allowing what they offer to lead you elsewhere.
I want to see our measures of success reflect this new reality. Site visits and time on site should be replaced by click through out to other sites.
The focus of a brand website should be to successfully guide the visitor to other relevant content and experiences, and to use the brief bit of attention the site has earned as an opportunity to establish a connection with that person.
Most of the best digital creative agencies have been focusing on a shift away from entertainment towards utility. This is essential. Yet, at the same time surprisingly difficult to live up to. "We want this site to be incredibly useful... (but we also want to win some fancy interactive awards... so it has to be in flash... and has to be experiential... and... )" Don't let this happen to you.
Each site visit is a gift. Don't waste it.
The fact is that too often we build websites for audiences who don't want or need them. And then we have to go out and beg them to come visit.
Before a client shells out the $1 million for the new site, and then another $10 million for online display ads to get people to visit the site, they should demand that someone make a case for why they need any site at all in the first place.
And the starting point for the new site should be a single page with a handful of important text links rendered in basic html. Start there, and only add what is necessary. (Hint: it shouldn't cost as much as it used to.)
What do you think websites are for? Comments welcome.
Yesterday I asked this question on Twitter, "Are websites still important?" (I wasn't going for nuance.)
As Ivan Askwith responded, "In a very limited sense, it's like asking if "books still matter." Websites have a massive range of functions and content."
True.
But.
I can't get this chart out of my head.
(From MTV Asia Being Young on slideshare)
This chart shows the average number of websites visited regularly by young internet users in different countries around the world. According to a 2007 MTV study, young web surfers in the U.S. only visit an average of 7 websites regularly. Though the data may be old, I think the basic
So websites are important, but only to the extent that they are able to create a platform for information/content sharing and connecting with other people. Look at the sites that are the most popular: Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, iTunes, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube. They succeed by allowing what they offer to lead you elsewhere.
I want to see our measures of success reflect this new reality. Site visits and time on site should be replaced by click through out to other sites.
The focus of a brand website should be to successfully guide the visitor to other relevant content and experiences, and to use the brief bit of attention the site has earned as an opportunity to establish a connection with that person.
Most of the best digital creative agencies have been focusing on a shift away from entertainment towards utility. This is essential. Yet, at the same time surprisingly difficult to live up to. "We want this site to be incredibly useful... (but we also want to win some fancy interactive awards... so it has to be in flash... and has to be experiential... and... )" Don't let this happen to you.
Each site visit is a gift. Don't waste it.
The fact is that too often we build websites for audiences who don't want or need them. And then we have to go out and beg them to come visit.
Before a client shells out the $1 million for the new site, and then another $10 million for online display ads to get people to visit the site, they should demand that someone make a case for why they need any site at all in the first place.
And the starting point for the new site should be a single page with a handful of important text links rendered in basic html. Start there, and only add what is necessary. (Hint: it shouldn't cost as much as it used to.)
What do you think websites are for? Comments welcome.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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19 Comments:
I might just be being dense, but I don't see trend data in that chart - just country comparisons. Do we know if young US surfers were regularly visiting more sites in 2002 or 1997? Do we know what "regularly" means?
you're right, tom. that doesn't show a trend. it's just a point in time. but, simply the fact that in 2007 young internet users in the U.S. only visited an average of 7 sites regularly is a pretty eye-opening statistic. and i think that there's still a lot of truth to it, even if that number has gone up to 10 sites since then, or dropped to 5.
the point is that a brand's microsite isn't going to be one of them.
Mike - agree that sites should be useful...to the extent that they add value to whoever the intended user is. Sometimes that's not going to be info sharing and connecting. I think the hard part is agreeing on what's actually valuable [for each brand and user].
c
How about just making the website a realtime feed of the Twitter comments about your brand? Oh, right...
I think a lot depends on "regularly" - do any brands really plan on making their microsites sticky beyond a visit or two? Your point about "make the most of each visitor" is the important one, for sure.
Interestingly, if Nielsen's data is to be believed, the average # of sites a US surfer has visited has been going up up up since the early 00s, which suggests to me that the regular sites *are* doing their job at driving eyeballs elsewhere on the web (however briefly).
Couldn't agree more... especially like the idea that we build sites and then have to beg people to come. I think it's a principle that applies broadly to marketing today. Relevance. Context. Value. When those are authentic, people come, use, share, and enjoy the 'gift' as you say.
Maury Giles
For a second talk about retail:
Some reports (http://bit.ly/1NBCp) suggest that retail sites have never been more important. They have eclipsed search as the "number 1 venue for beginning product research."
Others will tell you that search (especially paid search) is omnipotent, providing the perfect platform for satisfying AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action). No matter where you are in the purchase funnel, you will be served the appropriate content based on your keywords (unless you are really lazy with your keywords - "VW Rabbit" vs. "Cheap VW Rabbit in NYC").
Eric Clemens (http://bit.ly/azRtn) suggests that: "Consumers behave as if they get much of their information about product offerings from the internet, through independent professional rating sites like dpreview.comor community content rating services like Ratebeer.comor TripAdvisor.com." In other words, recommendations from community and friends is king.
So, who to believe? We know one thing for sure, outside of paid search, consumers do not want to view advertising unless it is 100% focussed on them–reports from Nielsen show eye tracking studies that confirmed "banner blindness" as early as 1998–just four years after their introduction, so chances are that your clever display ads and your $1 million micro-site are a huge waste of time and money.
I'm not sure I've seen enough evidence that people are really jumping headfirst into retail sites as their launch pad for research. I think that some reports are ignoring data feeds like RSS and Twitter as being the first port of call. If it's true, I'm very surprised. I think it depends on how focussed your initial research is. Are you looking for a specific book? (Amazon) Are you looking for recommended reading? (BookArmy).
Are websites necessary? As long as they provide utility (help me configure the car I'm looking for with the right options and then let me compare it against others in its class) and reach me at the right time with the right message (by pushing content out to other platforms through keyword based applications), then yes, they are.
Oh look what happened, content, as long as it is trustworthy, is still king.
Depends on the brand (as always, I think this stuff should be looked at on a case-by-case basis), but I think websites, at least at the brand level, are still fairly crucial.
Just in terms of organic search rankings, I think brands have a lot more options in optimizing a website they control and own, versus a destination on YouTube or Facebook or somewhere else. The links in from places like that are important, but I doubt that most brands would be willing to consciously bolster SERP rise for a YouTube page versus a holistic site of their own. Even Skittles still has their own url, even if their content is aggregated in from elsewhere.
Your point at the top of your post about the "wrong reasons" for building a site sort of struck me, because I don't necessarily think reasons like that are wrong or right as a rule. If building a website to satisfy management eventually gets you more marketing money to grow your brand with, I don't really think that's wrong. Might not be relevant to the consumer directly, but brands often have more audiences (employees, stockholders) than just consumers that they have to consider in order to survive.
One last thing - I was thinking about how people tend to write off most brands that don't have at least a simple website - if you're not online, you don't exist. And if you're a biggish brand, and your website looks crappy, that says something to people. If you sell fancy furniture, your site had better be gorgeous. And even if a brand never goes out and begs anyone to come to their site, I think the detriment of not having a presence that represents who you are to the people that do come looking for you is something to consider.
Great post Mike, and that is indeed one heck of an eye opening statistic.
I think the issue is that a lot of clients and agencies immediately jump to a website when they think of giving a brand a digital presence. It's a bit like what ad agencies used, and sadly often still do: "here's your 30 second ad, now what's your business problem"
Brands can live online and be useful and rewarding by participating in existing spaces where their audience spend time participating rather than having to build their own real estate and then spend money driving traffic there. Again, maybe a stretched analogy but it's like everyone stops making ads and instead starts building their own TV channels.
I think it's also a really interesting challenge when you think about the big multi-brand companies. Wouldn't it make more sense for P&G, Unilever or Mars to have one site with sections for all their brands, rather than sites for each brand or microsites for each campaign?
Feels like we're often making stuff for the sake of making stuff.
Mike, you should check out a recent post by Tim Malbon of Made by Many
http://www.madebymany.co.uk/the-web-as-a-column-of-the-ocean-001016/
and i left this comment there...
"Not entirely germane, Tim, but I had the thought today of the thousands of micro-sites that lay static and dead are like the corpses of ship wrecks under the ocean.
If you want to go it alone and forego existing social platforms with both the people and the tech; you gotta keep em afloat all by your lonesome with the most amazing shit anyone has ever seen. period."
I balk at brands building much only because of the attention deficit disorder most brands suffer. If you want to build something, you have to be willing to keep it afloat for the long term. You can't ask someone to learn a new behavior (like visiting your site) and then by the time that behavior is learned, the site is gone or a ghost town, and you've essentially penalized that person for playing along.
Hi Mike,
I agree with your point, but your statistic is incredibly misleading. I don't particularly care that users only visit 7 sites regularly. In fact, I don't even think it's eye opening. Every time I open Google Chrome, the homepage reminds me that I only visit 7-9 sites regularly. Brands don't need to be a site consumers visit regularly. Frankly, I doubt most could afford it. YouTube loses $500 million a year. Yahoo is a billion dollar operation.
I don't mean to be dismissive. I think you raise an EXCELLENT point. More and more, websites are a conduit to additional information. All the sites you listed either collect content from multiple sources or spit people out to multiple destinations.
The problem isn't websites, the problem is "destination microsites."
The journey shouldn't end with our brands -- we should be thinking more along the lines of "Branded Rest Stops."
Love the idea of click-outs as a measure of success.
I love Brian's thoughts here around "Branded rest stops". Taking that idea further,it seems we are all pushing towards distributable assets v.s destination-based fixed assets.
Having a few hubs helps for sure, but better to have a portfolio of content and apps that can self distribute, be "carried away" and placed by others, or gathered through user aggregation seems to be where all this is going?
Hi Mike,
I have to agree with Brian here. The notion that websites as a communication vehicle are losing importance to me aren't supported by data or user's research behavior.
Sure there are stalwarts like Google.com and Wikipedia that we will continuously go back to. But if you think of your own behavior when seeking out information about a product you start with a broad view of the category (i.e. google it or go to specialty portals like engadget) but as you digg deeper you'll probably visit blog and the official product site for more details. You probably won't ever visit that destination site or that blog again, but its purpose is to not be the next google, but be part of the glue that takes you from consideration to purchase.
Case and point, I love everything Apple, from my 3 ipods to my 2 iphones to my 4 computers. Apple.com however is only visited to learn about a new product. Once i've decided for or against purchasing the product i don't visit the site again. Unless i need some confirmation that i made a good choice.
Brands need to consider an incredibly wide (Digital and otherwise) marketing landscape. Websites matter. They matter the same way a 30 second spot, billboard, print ad, or AdWords campaign still matter. They're a touchpoint to the consumer and a representation of the brand.
I certainly appreciate the conduit Digital provides to engage a consumer through utility (we've been encouraging our clients to create branded utilities for some time now.) These tools help simplify consumers increasingly busier lives, provide value at a moment of relevance, and are often portable allowing users to engage on their own terms. Solid dev platforms for Facebook, iPhone, Twitter, etc. have obviously empowered this ecosystem. They make sense. Especially when they inherently align with a brand's value system (i.e. Nike+, Fiat eco:Drive.) They should be part of a cohesive Digital marketing strategy that includes SEO, Social/ Conversation Marketing, and... Websites.
We can't forget that while our medium can rapidly and effectively distribute information, connect people, and provide value, it's also capable of triggering emotion. It can touch a users senses though sight, sound and most importantly, interactivity. Why abandon that? I still love the movies (even though I don't have time to go as often as I used to - certainly less than 7 times p/yr).
Consider it all, try it, test it, enhance what's working... it's Digital. I love this dialog, lets continue it at the unConference this week. See you tomorrow.
Microsites, prima facie, are are not bad ideas. They do an excellent job of supporting very specific promotions and work as short-term digital homes for said promotions. They work particularly well for packaged goods where there's no real reason to have any sort of web presence unless you're running a contest or other promotion.
Now what I think you wanted to say is that brands often forget the short-term promotional aspect of microsites and look at them as long-term adjuncts to the main site, or (worse) as some sort of pointless "experience" that consumers are just jonesing to see. (e.g. the old "we invited the cameras back for a behind the scenes look at how Whispy-o's are made. Watch all 10 three-minute videos.")
But no one's ever wanted to see stuff like that. Maybe back in 1996 or so, when there wasn't much else on the internet, but certainly not since then.
Not to get down on you-- you've been writing some really great stuff on here as of late-- but it's amazing to me that there's still a need to point things like this out.
It's a topic people have been harping on for many years, an argument no one ever actually disagrees with, and yet for most brands and their agencies, it seems to go in one ear and out the other.
you got it, alan. that's definitely what i was trying to say.
but, sadly, i've found that it does still need to be repeated. big brands are still blowing big budgets on "pointless [experiences] that consumers are just jonesing to see" and digital creative agencies are still betting their businesses on that premise.
things need to change. and they're not changing fast enough.
@Alan and @Mike, i think you guys are condemning a way of doing things because it hasn't been used in large part very well. Whether we're talking conversation or destination site they all have a use in the marketing arsenal.
The issue to me is that we're still condeming tactics and not talking about the real issue which is a lack of creativity and imagination and just plain knowledge when it comes to digital strategy.
What the industry is hungry for, is not the latest flavor of the month tactic (and yes social media is squarely that) but a lively conversation on various strategic frameworks that look holistically at all available tactics and offer differing recos.
When we all start talking about strategy and stop talking about flash and campaign site, that's when the real breakthrough will happen
I think this statistic of 7 sites is suspect. However, assuming it to be true the challenging part is how do you pull a visitor to your site?
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