Phil Lauterjung

I have been in the midst of doing considerable research for a new business venture.  As part of that research I have looked at dozens and dozens (maybe more, I’ve lost track) of small business web sites.  I have found it to be terribly discouraging.  Many of these web sites are doing these companies more harm than good.

Today I answered a question posed in a LinkedIn discussion group which caused me to think about this subject more deeply.  The owner of a software company had no marketing budget and was wondering how to get more business from a new product.  I took a quick look at their web site, which looked good but was actually incomplete and not particularly customer friendly.  I offered some suggestions  in the discussion group and didn’t expect much in return – I’m not in the business of selling web site development.  I was just trying to be helpful.

I received a private reply from someone else that reviewed the discussion thread.  He was complimenting me on my suggestions, but made a comment that really struck me.  He said that he was also very discouraged about the lack of quality web sites, and by extension a commitment to sound marketing, among small businesses.  He feared that many of them won’t survive the recession.

Now the web site of the software company wasn’t ugly like some of the ones I’ve seen.  But it wasn’t offering a distinct value proposition and there were a number of links that took you to sections that were incomplete or just hard to understand.  I also knew that there were some things that they could do without spending any money, or very little, that could really help them.  So that’s what prompted me to respond to their plea for help.

I received a very nice thank you from the owner of that software company telling me that they were in the process of implementing my suggestions.  None of this took a lot of my time.  I felt good about helping, and that company will hopefully survive the recession.

So here’s my question to you readers.  This wasn’t an unusual situation, there are many businesses with outdated, ugly, and very ineffective web sites.  As potential customers and users of their sites do we tell them that their sites suck – nicely of course?  Or do we allow the survival of the fittest to prevail?

Maybe they have a really good product and just don’t realize how bad their web site is.  Or perhaps no one has given them a compelling reason to update their site.  What if we all took just a few moments to make a comment in their contact forms (most of them at least have that on their site), and kindly suggest that they strongly consider that their survival could depend on the quality of their web presence?  Would that have enough of a cumulative effect that we might come out of this recession faster?

I really don’t know the answers to these questions, but the events I have experienced got me thinking about this.  I would really like to hear your thoughts.  What do you think?  Let’s start a conversation on this.

Photo Credit: © Mauro Saivezzo – Fotolia.com

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