With the emergence of easily update-able Websites, web hoarding has become a problem. To give you a recent example; We are working with a client with over 800 pages on their website. Everyone in the company had been given the user name and password to the dashboard and gradually over a few years the web site had become like a home on “Hoarders”, the TV show. Visitors could barely move through the site. It was a sloppy mess and the staff started hating their web almost as much as their customers hated the web.
So what’s the problem? After all, the site had a search bar so that visitors could easily find the info they want. There was plenty of content and since “content is king” Google raised the company’s page rank. All is well, right?
Wrong.
The “wealth” of information choked and diluted the company’s marketing message. The brand was buried under information clutter. Visitors wanted to scan the site quickly and simply couldn’t. Instead of a giant editing job, it was decided the content would have to be rewritten from scratch. The re-designed site has been re-sized to a more manageable 22 pages. The web experience is fully branded and has been crafted into “salty” content and images that leave the customer wanting more.
In the future, the 800 pages that were taken off the web will be filtered for value to the customer, then edited, organized into topics, thoroughly meta-tagged, and gradually released as blogs.
The results of the housecleaning? After just two months after launch, the response rate has climbed into double digits, with engagement rates at 75% and for certain crowds engagement is at an over 100% increase. The bottom line outcome was an increase in sales by more than 40% in just one year. Now the staff is proud to have visitors to their company web. There is breathing room and marketing/sales functionality has been restored. Web hording has been converted into high value, searchable blogging.
Brand well and prosper!
Andy Cleary
Orbit Design – Home of Genius Simple Branding and the Marketing Machine System.
303 433-1616 ac@orbit-design.com