Take some flash introductions, a colorful animation of your core business message, and a custom designed website navigation menu and you have a site that looks great and is utterly confusing at the same time. In fact, the beautiful expensive website sitting in front of the user will more than likely drive the user away than invite them to review a business message, or better yet, purchase a product.
Business websites today are facing increased pressure to outdo each other with new technologies, fresh redesigned looks, and the latest whiz bang digital bells and whistles that can wow a virtual audience. It is for this reason that visitors are in increasing numbers pointing their browsers to simple, easy to navigate websites now more than ever before.
Simplicity is not a new concept when it comes to design. Designers of virtually every trade and skill set use simplicity as a starting point for many of their most incredible works. However, on the web, there still remains a more is better approach when it comes to design that is off putting to the average visitor.
Even the most technologically savvy internet users are unable to fully navigate all the unique features available for websites to use on the Internet with today including robust animations, powerful introductions, and menu commands that double as product images. In short, complex on the internet is confusing to most visitors.
Simplicity on the other hand can help drive a website’s message home in a way that all those fancy websites cannot. With a simple and easy to navigate design visitors to websites can instantly grab whatever it is they are looking for in the shortest amount of time possible. In the end is this not what all people are interested in doing on the web? Finding what they are looking for in as little time as possible? For most the answer would be yes, but for those interested in just killing time online, simplicity still makes sense.
Understanding that those in a rush would be far better served by a simple and effective web design is a start, but understanding how those not in a rush are best served by simplicity is an ends to a means when it comes to understanding the online consumer.
People that are interested in doing detailed product research, or research on a particular individual, company, or other entity, are still best served by simple accessible information online. Google’s sleek and simple search engine design is a marquee example for this concept. For so called web 2.0 websites, those built off 5 page templates with page titles like FAQ, Homepage, and Contact Us, are also regarded as positive pushes towards the simple line.
Webmasters are best off building websites that offer easy to find information that provides the easiest path from visitor question to satisfied answer.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Platform Launch Formula
As many of you already know, I love to build new businesses. More than running them, I like to build new businesses and bring them to a profitable state. I’ve been accused more than once of having business ADD when it comes to my site launches, as I often end up launching one site nearly as quick as I do a second, third, and forth site.
I know that my methods do not follow the normal “product launch formula” that is so in vogue right now. I frankly could care less about this formula, as I think it is totally irrelevant for most people trying to launch a business online.
Rather than a product launch formula comprising of joint ventures and building buzz, I think it is important to build a platform first, and then deliver a product to the platform over and over again.
Take for example, Google. When Google went public and the stock price soared, they didn’t put all their eggs in one basket, they hired bright people to innovate on as many corners of the internet as possibly. They then handed over each innovation to an active audience that was already using Google’s search products to devour.
While running a small business might seem totally foreign to how a mega company like Google acts, the concept, or better yet, principle remains the same. Build the platform, and then deliver innovative products and services to the platform that is already waiting for it.
I’ve had success with articles, which lead to e-books, which lead to press releases, which led to testimonials, which led to newsletter writing, and the list could go on and on. These niche businesses aren’t very different in theme, and could probably all be bundled in one site, or even one package. But regardless of their similarity it remains a fact that each business was built to satisfy the needs of existing customers, as in, my platform.
Coming up in the near future will be a half dozen new sites offering my existing platform services they didn’t even know they needed yet. My focus has shifted from providing for an existing demand, to providing for a future demand.
When you look at your business, look at what you can do to vertically integrate your existing resources into a new platform. I see the best and brightest in business do this daily, from Neiman Marcus launching their new chain of boutique retail stores Cusp, to a local newspaper that launches a monthly spiritual magazine to tap the wide base of religious readers on the market today.
Whatever the case might be, delivering a helpful product or service to an established platform is far better than the so called product launch formula.
I know that my methods do not follow the normal “product launch formula” that is so in vogue right now. I frankly could care less about this formula, as I think it is totally irrelevant for most people trying to launch a business online.
Rather than a product launch formula comprising of joint ventures and building buzz, I think it is important to build a platform first, and then deliver a product to the platform over and over again.
Take for example, Google. When Google went public and the stock price soared, they didn’t put all their eggs in one basket, they hired bright people to innovate on as many corners of the internet as possibly. They then handed over each innovation to an active audience that was already using Google’s search products to devour.
While running a small business might seem totally foreign to how a mega company like Google acts, the concept, or better yet, principle remains the same. Build the platform, and then deliver innovative products and services to the platform that is already waiting for it.
I’ve had success with articles, which lead to e-books, which lead to press releases, which led to testimonials, which led to newsletter writing, and the list could go on and on. These niche businesses aren’t very different in theme, and could probably all be bundled in one site, or even one package. But regardless of their similarity it remains a fact that each business was built to satisfy the needs of existing customers, as in, my platform.
Coming up in the near future will be a half dozen new sites offering my existing platform services they didn’t even know they needed yet. My focus has shifted from providing for an existing demand, to providing for a future demand.
When you look at your business, look at what you can do to vertically integrate your existing resources into a new platform. I see the best and brightest in business do this daily, from Neiman Marcus launching their new chain of boutique retail stores Cusp, to a local newspaper that launches a monthly spiritual magazine to tap the wide base of religious readers on the market today.
Whatever the case might be, delivering a helpful product or service to an established platform is far better than the so called product launch formula.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Interestingly Enough My Site is Back Up
Like a bat out of hell comes my new website, ClarkCovington.com to defy all those googlers that want to put their detective caps on and try to find stuff about me. Instead of going to all that trouble you can simply visit ClarkCovington.com where you will find information about me, about most of my businesses (I left the top secret ones out), and a bit of other information about my life.
While my initial impression of branding a persona was less than favorable, I have since decided it is important, and necessary to keep at least some control over your own brand.
Whether you are a chef that is getting rave reviews in the local paper, or a comedian that just brought the house down at the biggest comedy club in the country, brand control can help you further your career. It can help those that search your name everyday by giving them instant, and controlled access to the vitals about you, and in the end can result in getting your message to more people faster.
That about sums up why I built the site, why I built this blog, and hopefully I will be able to share with you tidbits of what is going on in my life that will actually benefit you.
In the meantime, make a point to register your own name as a domain, and keep it, the $10 a year is a small price to pay to have the ultimate say when it comes to YOU on the internet and in the search engines.
While my initial impression of branding a persona was less than favorable, I have since decided it is important, and necessary to keep at least some control over your own brand.
Whether you are a chef that is getting rave reviews in the local paper, or a comedian that just brought the house down at the biggest comedy club in the country, brand control can help you further your career. It can help those that search your name everyday by giving them instant, and controlled access to the vitals about you, and in the end can result in getting your message to more people faster.
That about sums up why I built the site, why I built this blog, and hopefully I will be able to share with you tidbits of what is going on in my life that will actually benefit you.
In the meantime, make a point to register your own name as a domain, and keep it, the $10 a year is a small price to pay to have the ultimate say when it comes to YOU on the internet and in the search engines.
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