The Teckki Says

This is the last of the series of What Your Website Should Have.

If, as an organization, you don’t have a website, you feel the heat of one question, "What is your website address?" Then there’s the mad rush to get a site, any site, that will allow you to avoid the further embarrassment of answering, "Uh, I don’t have one." However, in your panicked rush to get something up and going, usually on the cheap, you leave yourself open to having your site visitors ask another embarrassing question, "What’s the point?"

There is a song that my daughter and I really enjoy, Children's Story, by the Hip Hop artist Slick Rick. As a song, it is a wonderfully told bedtime story about a kid who is led down the path of crime and the consequences of that choice, with the moral of the song to stay straight. Its' poetic rhythm made it a favorite of ours. Although it is an old song, it recently prompted us to look up the video on You Tube. The song was so well written that it should have served as the script. I really emphasize SHOULD have, because in their efforts to put out the video, someone was rushed, lazy or clueless, as the video oftentimes barely resembled the song. Being a Hip Hop piece in the traditional sense, I guess the urge to inject scenes of sexual imagery and self aggrandizement were too much to overcome, rather than leaving it as a brilliantly-told story. It left me asking, "What's the point?"

Is THAT the question you want your website visitors and prospects to ask? Remember, the question you get asked is IF you have a website, not what's on it. You aren’t there to answer that question.
Maybe your in-person sales pitch is like that song – smooth, appealing and well done. We all have to blow our own horn to a live audience. If we hit the right notes, perhaps they will be impressed and want see the video, er, your website. If the two don’t match, I should not have to tell you what that means.

You get the point.