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11.03.05
Web Manager: You Can't Serve Everybody
 By
Gerry McGovern
Every time you serve someone, you make someone else wait. Every time you publish
a piece of content you make other content less findable.
A myth has grown up around the Web that it is an extremely cheap publishing environment.
This is simply not true. Publishing is much more than simply physically publishing
content on a website, newspaper, magazine, etc.
There's promotion and distribution. There's the time of the reader. Remember,
every time someone comes to your website, you charge them their time and attention.
Time today is more precious than oil. Long after we have found a replacement for
oil, we will still be facing 24-hour days.
Saying that distribution is cheap on the Web misunderstands a core principle of
distribution. Sometimes when I'm stopped at traffic lights, there are people selling
the local paper. Why? Surely, the publisher should know by now that if they published
their newspaper on the Web they would save so much money on distribution. Sure
they would, but their sales would plummet.
In an information-overloaded world, distribution is a form of advertising and
promotion. Promotion will become an increasingly significant cost in a world burdened
by choice. Hollywood spends almost as much promoting its films as it does making
them. On the Web, you may have close to zero distribution costs, but you also
have close to zero visibility.
Organizations are now spending more and more on getting people to their websites.
However, just because someone visits your website doesn't mean you have reached
them. Your website may be too cluttered, with too many messages to too many audiences.
Every time you target a particular audience, you make another audience less visible
and important. If you are trying to talk to 10 audiences on your homepage, you
might as well be talking to none. As readers quickly scan your page, they see
lots of messages that are not for them. Impatient scan readers like to be made
feel special. Otherwise, they hit the Back button.
Every time you add a piece of content you make it more difficult for another piece
of content to be easily found. Sure, you only make it a little more difficult.
However, as you keep adding content, the navigation becomes less intuitive, and
the search less effective. (Most people will not go to the second page of search
results.)
It is a noble objective to try and answer everyone's questions when they come
to your website. However, it is neither practical nor achievable. Some will use
Amazon as an example of a website that offers a huge range of products. Yes, that's
true. Amazon has spent over a billon dollars on its web operations. Amazon did
not have to invent a classification for books and music, as sophisticated and
well established classifications already existed.
Amazon creates very little of its own content; music and book publishers do, authors
and reviewers do. Amazon has reduced overhead in other areas by getting publishers
to do a lot of the work in classifying and describing the books and music available.
If you have all these advantages, then, sure, build a huge website. Otherwise,
live within your means. Focus on your most important customers and make sure your
website excels in meeting their needs. That's how you create value.
About the Author:
For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
Subscribe to his New Thinking Newsletter: subscribe@gerrymcgovern.mailer1.net |
