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Why Designers Need Smart Marketers to Build Websites

Right Source | February 9, 2011

We’ve touched on this topic before, in a great piece Mike wrote last year — All I Need is a Web Designer (which I highly encourage you to read) – but I was reminded of it again in a lunch meeting with a friend last week.  The company recently went through a rebranding process, and as part of this process hired a firm to redesign their website.  So far so good right?

Well, after taking a quick look at the newly launched website it was clear to me that, while the face looked good, there were major issues behind the scenes.  Much like when buying a home, websites can have pretty exteriors, great colors on the walls, but significant issues with the structure and foundation that a home buyer would never know to look for or even how to evaluate.  Hence, the building inspection business.  A good home inspector is worth their weight in gold, but who serves that role as you go through the website process?

For most companies, the process goes something like this:

  1. Engage a web design firm, individual, or “digital agency” (whatever the heck that phrase means — whole separate topic for a future post).
  2. Trust that everything is being done right, because we hired “somebody that knows this stuff” and we don’t have the knowledge or resources to verify that the right things are being done.

So, getting back to the start of the story, my friend’s company’s new website launches and things look good.  Sure, he said, it was frustrating to be behind schedule, launch late and not know why, but they came away with something they thought looked good, and functioned the way they wanted it to.  And, of course he assumed that it had to be built right because they hired a shop that boasted big name clients and a fancy portfolio.  So, despite the hold-ups and some frustration they were confident that their site was delivered in tip-top shape.

You already know from the beginning of this post that the reality was anything but that.  The newly launched site did not try to keep the same URLs where they could (big for SEO), had no 301 redirects from old pages to new where a new URL was necessary (again a big SEO factor), had the same title and description on every single page (SEO no-no), a slew of images with no alt tags (again, SEO and usability no-no) and a host of other issues the client would never be expected to notice or even know about.

Bluntly, I consider this malpractice.  When building a home, there’s a role for architects, builders and inspectors.  What was done here was akin to leaving leaky pipes or faulty electric wiring in a wall.   After years of working to achieve significant organic rankings in Google and inbound links from industry sites, the rankings have dipped and there are broken links with generic 404 error pages since no redirects were set up.  Opportunities to tell search engines and visitors what pages are about with the proper use of metadata were ignored with every page using the same title and description.

This is why designers need the right type of marketer to build websites.  A marketer that understands both the overall strategic plan and how the nitty-gritty puzzle pieces fit together.  You need a marketer that understands how to redesign a site and maintain your first page organic search listing vs. dropping off the page altogether.  This is why many design shops bring us in to handle strategy, search, content and other elements — because they’re smart enough to know that they can’t handle it appropriately.  In short, you need to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle are aligned.

Otherwise, your stable looking home is ready to crumble on the inside.

Marketers – What are some of the worst issues you have seen on the website design side?  Designers, think that I’m being unfair?  Fire away in the comments area below.

Think your Interactive Marketing could use a building inspector?  Not sure if your website and Interactive Marketing are as effective as they could be?  Do you think you are missing out on revenue opportunities?  Read more about our Interactive Shift marketing assessment, or contact us for more information.

 

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About Right Source:

The Marketing Trenches blog provides thought leadership from actual marketing practitioners, not from professional thought leaders. Designed to help business leaders make more educated marketing decisions, our insights come directly from our experience in the trenches. You can find more from Right Source on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.