Before you Buy or Build a Website…
Before you buy or build a website you need to know why it’s going to be there, what it’s meant to achieve, how to measure success and failure, and who the customers really are (not who you or the client believes they should be).
Web Design should be in Context
I know a lot of web designers and graphic designers and designers and yada yada… and the commonality is that they’re really good at what they do in the context of a project that’s underway. I also know a few good business people who can get projects off the ground and run them through to an economic outcome.
Awesome… money is generated… product is created… work is industrially processed… but doesn’t that strike you a little bit like a con-job on your clients?
My Line in the Sand
Here’s my line in the sand. I don’t want to make websites that are pointless markup pollution on the information highway. I don’t want to work on vacuous six page holding patterns for businesses that don’t understand what they’re out there trying to achieve. This is business, ladies and gentlemen, business. Let’s make it about branding, segmentation, marketing strategies and return on investment.
Because that’s the biggest bum-fuck going on in web design today and that, in my mind, differentiates a true ‘web professional’ from a wanker who picked up HTML as a side order to some romantic (bullshit) easy lifestyle.
An Example: I Want a Website
Here is an example I want you to follow (and hopefully appreciate). When the client comes into your office and says “I want a website”… your job is to ask why, how is this going to be achieved, what’s the strategy they’re after? Eyeballs? Conversions? Something else? And don’t stop there – who are their customers, how do they know that’s the case, where is their evidence?
And if they can’t answer that then you’re either the person to do some solid hard quantifiable research to discover that information or they don’t need a website yet.
An Example: I Have a Strategy
Here is how it should happen – strategically. The client discovers a market segment with money that they want to approach. As a part of a multi-channel marketing strategy (meaning online AND offline integration) they decide to pursue that group of potential customers with a specific online value proposition. That means marketing to the right people where the rubber naturally hits the road.
Then you, the web designer, come into the picture. It’s not about getting them online… it’s about what you can do with your talent and skills to help them. One of the biggest things you have to offer is MEASURABILITY.
Stop Bum-Fucking the Clients
Why am I so pissed off about this? The reason is because we’re nearly always working from the horses head down to the toes, arse about face. You don’t try and fit customers and campaigns to a website… you fit a website into an overall campaign. If you don’t know the customers or the reason or the success criteria for return on investment then in my humble opinion…
… at that point you are BUM-FUCKING the client. Bigtime.
We Need to Educate Industry & the Market
When I see web designers advertise in the way that they pump out trollop pages by the rote then I’m not surprised we’re in this situation. We need to educate the industry and the market that what we offer are business solutions not beach towels for the Internet.
If you’re a company thinking of getting a website – STOP. If you don’t know why you want one then it’s a simple part of your business to work that out. Get an IT strategy first, then come and see what can be done to achieve those goals and objectives with technology. [Rant ended, you can go home now and poke pins in dolls]
October 22nd, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Speaking of pins in dolls… I fell off the step and seem to have torn a ligament… somebody might have been working hard on their doll. Ouch.
October 22nd, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Oh no. hope it feels better fast.
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm
It’s coming a little better, bandaged and sitting in my office with the heater on… trying to get my mead to start bubbling…
… I think it’s time to put some more yeast and nutrient in there.
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I think you’re being a bit harsh on the clients. It’s a new industry for them, often. Frankly, most of the time, I’d rather have a client I can educate than one who ‘knows’ what they need. Especially if they pay me to educate them.
I do agree about the bum-fucking, though. Are you sure that’s the correct technical term?
Hope the ligament heals. And the mead bubbles.
October 23rd, 2010 at 10:06 am
I’m not sure that I have been harsh on the clients… I thought I was being harsh on the industry practitioners who espouse professionalism and yet think it’s OK not to be in the business of doing business. I am being very critical of the idea that what we are reduces down to “web designer / web developer”… as a product pushed out the door.
First, while clients don’t know their IT they should at least know more about their business than we do… and if they don’t know the answers to those questions then either you or they need to find that out.
Or what’s the point of a website? It becomes a vacuous beach towel.
Second, web solutions aren’t just about the technical HTML PHP etc… that’s a major industry problem in web industries. A website is a part of an overall business strategy to attempt to achieve measurable outcomes… and anything else is really just a waste of money. Look at practically any Tasmanian restaurant website… what’s it’s purpose.
Web solutions are just a part of something bigger, is all I’m saying. If you want a post in the sand that will differentiate a “web professional” into the future from a “non-web professional” then that’s it – the fact that a professional is about achieving quantifiable business outcomes for clients, not just building websites.
Of course a lot of small businesses, in particular, are failing to plan… thus planning to fail. But it’s really our job to step into that process and help them achieve goals and objectives.
And rather than just answering the phone and saying “Yes we can do that… six pages by next friday send through your content”… we should be making it about business.
Because this links back to a whole bunch of crap that makes the industry devalued in the market’s mind. Of course any kid can pull this beach towel scenario together. Of course any TAFE student can undercut you living in their mother’s garage.
It’s not until the industry realises it’s proper role in the making and developing of business solutions with those measurable outcomes that the problem disappears.
The alternative… drop the word professional.
How do doctors, lawyers and accountants – all professions of the true ilk – approach this sort of thing? Each is employed to do the “best interests of the client”… it’s what’s called a fiduciary relationship.
That’s the relationship and ethos that we need to employ in the web industries mentality and the market’s perception. Come to us because we’ll help your business get richer, smarter, leaner, or more efficient.
Currently all we say is “come to us because we know how to put pages on the web”. That, in 2010, is simply not good enough in my opinion.
Not until the web professional is willing to accept responsibiliity as a professional can their be a return respect. Let the dodgey Sam’s make HTML and PHP till their eyes pop – they won’t make client’s money.
And the other thing… is when we don’t know we should outsource. Link that ROI back to the tasks and if they choose not to invest so be it. Don’t just make them another six pages of huff-n-puff HTML that wastes money.
Ethically, y’know, in the eyes of true professions, that would be considered theft. Making things you know they don’t need or really want because they’re ignorant. Our job is to bridge their ignorance and offer services that provide some level of success criteria.
Mmm the ankle is healing but the mead has had a second batch of yeast and still isn’t bubbling… but I hear that isn’t always a bad thing. We’ll see in 9 months.
October 23rd, 2010 at 10:56 am
I agree with all of that. I’d extend it to say professionalism can be measured by longevity x client satisfaction. Professionals consistently meet their clients’ needs.
My way of working has been to build long term working relationships with most of my clients. I still get to take on short term projects, but with my portfolio of regular clients my job becomes maintaining the existing web presence while actively working with the client to improve and extend it over time to meet their own developing needs, and to take advantage of emerging techonology to suggest new directions to them. That’s true whether it’s a directly commercial site, a brochure/portfolio site, a personal site or a pro bono NGO site.
Most of the web designers I know in similar situations to mine take the same approach: you have to engage with your client about what a website’s meant to do before you get anywhere near what it might look like. I become ‘the web guy’ for my clients, and that includes bringing what I know about marketing on the web to the client’s table.
But freelancers, one-(wo)man-bands, small partnerships are a fraction of the professionals who get websites made. An agency might use several specialists on a project, one of whom might get under the client’s skin while the others are informed by what they’re told. Obviously, that project manager has to be professional.
Your allusion to doctors, lawyers and accountants is apt. What they share, and we don’t, is formal skills training, certified qualifications, specialised small business training, industry accreditation, ongoing skills development opportunities, professional member associations and peak representation. Not to mention some kind of a career path. And tax breaks.
9 months!? I’ll be there in 8 weeks! Is there any of last year’s left?
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:08 am
Ah it’s my first ever mead… & I’m not sure I haven’t messed something up on this one. Although the bubbles aren’t the only indicator. I’ll check over the weekend to see how the sugar is being consumed by sampling and using a hydrometer. We’ll see
I wrote that post and the ROI post because although there is a portion of the industry that is treating it as business… there’s that undercurrent, and it’s a huge undercurrent, of sites that get made just to be on the internet, often made by people out to make a portfolio, or aiming at budget-one-stop-solutions, or similar.
And a lot of that misunderstanding and devalueing of skills in the perception of the market is because of these guys / girls. They’ll always exist but you can push them back by continually pointing out that web solutions aren’t about ‘building websites’. You don’t sell websites… you sell web solutions to business problems. That’s exactly the opposite of that kid in grade 9 in mum’s garage.
So step one is to assert this is about business to business relationships. Step two is to make it all about supporting underlying measurable ROI. Step three is to step aside from that crappy pool that isn’t interested in buying solutions anyway… let the sharks (sorry the kids) eat that turkey. In some cases you would have to be strong enough to say “Sorry but I’m not sure that we’re the company you need at this point.”
But yeh, I totally agree, relationship building and other intangibles are where your real business lays. And it’s a big part of answering those fundamental questions.
It’s complex because
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:12 am
I think it may have been adaptive path recently where I read something similar. That people who define their job as website designers / developers in 2011 are selling themselves short – that’s such a tiny focus.
Just making websites isn’t enough to differentiate or fully cover what the job should really be including.
Oh sorry, re: Professionals… the problem is you can’t wear the word professional and not be prepared to aspire in the long-term to “professional practice” including ethical boundaries.