Squarevox

Geoff Livingston at the Buzz Bin asks a good question:

The brochure approach doesn’t work. We know that. So blogs, podcasts and new social content has been added to the conventional web site, but the conversation is usually buried on sites as a simple link. Why bother? Why not reverse things and make brochure content a simple link, and the social content the heart of the web page?

Why not, indeed? (Ih fact, this site replaced a more static site that linked to a blog, so obviously I’m in agreement with the idea that Geoff is talking about here.)

What I’ve done and what Geoff suggests - his post is titled, “Tear Down the Web Site” - is probably a good idea for a lot of companies. My own caveat is this: before you start tearing down your web site for any reason, make sure you’ve got a customer-centric answer for the most fundamental web business question: “What is my site for?”

Note that I said “a customer-centric answer.” Answers that do not qualify include, “To increase revenue for our core product line,” “to raise the profile of our consulting business,” or “to make us feel really good about the web spend.”

If you were a customer, why would you come to your web site? What would you be looking? What would you want to do when you got there? What unexpected content would be valuable to you?

If it’s what is there on the home page right now, social or not, don’t tear it down. But if it’s not, start making changes.

And remember social content to the front does not, by the way, necessarily mean tearing anything down. The web is a world of continuous improvement, and if you’ve identified multiple critical uses for your site, perhaps for different segments of visitors, you may want to try increasing the prominence of buried content - for example, making the social content very prominent while providing lots of visibility for the always-important online support or retail sections.

And this must always be said: measure. Look at web analytics data. Do surveys. Observe user experiences as well as the clickstream - are people finding what they want?

For most organizations, making social content more prominent is probably a good idea. Just make it part of your ongoing efforts to measure and improve your site’s performance for your visitors.