By Katherine Andes
Several years ago, I contracted to develop a web site for a home improvement company.
Shortly after beginning the project, the owner killed it. We had had a miscommunication, and he was upset with me. I apologized, but he just didn’t want to move forward with me anymore.
Recently, I was thinking about him and looked his company up on the web. He had a beautiful new web site. Really. Very modern, attractive.
But the site …
- Looked like every other pretty web site on the block.
- Had zip humanity or personality — not even a staff page.
- Wasn’t written well for sales — web pages need good copy writing.
- Had numerous misspellings — unprofessional.
- Formatting of text was dull.
- Testimonials were weakly presented.
- Local search engine optimization was woefully incomplete.
That last point is very important. When I was working for him, I carefully explained how we would build and optimize specific pages to attract visitors from nearby cities in his territory. None of that was accomplished with his new site.
And I recall that the owner had a long family history in his business, which would give him
credibility and color. None of that was showcased.
Easy Furniture Web Tip #124: It’s easy to think you have an effective web site if it’s pretty. But beauty is only skin deep … with people and with web sites. You need depth to outshine your competitors.
Katherine Andes specializes in copywriting for SEO and web content development —including page customization for storefront and franchise web sites. You can phone her at 559.589.0379 or email at Kathy@AndesAndAssociates.com.