Web site rule number one: Define your audience

A recent experience highlights how little anyone in any business thinks about software, especially web sites.

I was running out of checks in the home checking account. The handy-dandy reminder check came up. Normally, I would take that to the local branch and hand it to the teller. (I live in a small town, and the bank is just down the street.)

This time, the vendor wanted me to use the web, or an 800 number. I choose the web. They pointed me to www.<bankname>.com.

That site, like almost all company web sites, was designed as a marketing tool. There are pages upon pages on their product and service offerings, their competitive advantages, their strengths relative to their competitors and the like.

After several tries to find the page where I could order new checks, I tried their search functionality. Results 1-10 (of over 1,000) for "order new checks" did not give me any useful pages. I gave up and used the phone.

The core problem was that this vendor was mixing metaphors badly: a 'website' is a place on the web. With one part of their mind, they consider a website as a marketing tool. They tried to reach potential new customers. With another part of their collective corporate mind, they were trying to streamline communication with current customers. Those are two very different audiences, with very different goals. Would they have sent the same large envelope of brochures to existing customers and potential new customers? Of course not. It would cost money, and (more importantly) it wouldn't work. Yet this company, and many others would happily and unwisely use the answer "see our website" for everything. No matter the question, no matter the audience, the answer is "it's on the website."

Don't do that. It would be tragic to put everything in one place. None of the possible audiences would be able to find anything. That's exactly what this bank had done. "You can find it on the website" isn't an answer. Create different content areas for different purposes. And segregate those different purposes based on audience needs.