Seven Deadly Sins of Professional Services Websites

Professional services websites often suffer from a number of common problems that hurt a firm's ability to compete and engage its audiences. This month we identify some of these problems so that you can recognize ways to improve your own firm's online presence.

1. Generic Look & Message

The majority of professional services websites don't do a particularly good job of distinguishing themselves. Most of these websites blend blandly into the online landscape. They use the same tired visuals and vague language as their competitors — contributing to a homogenized and confusing marketplace, one in which buyers struggle to choose between poorly differentiated firms.

Next time you revisit your firm's website design, make an effort to incorporate fresh imagery, colors and design elements into your site. Look at your competitors' websites not as models to emulate, but as departure points — familiar ground to avoid. Then craft messages that speak to your strengths. If your messages are clear and relevant to your audiences, qualified prospects will be a lot more receptive to your firm's offerings.

2. Lack of Clarity (and Specialization)

Fuzzy writing infects an astonishing number of professional services websites. These sites speak in general terms about solutions, but avoid specifying the problems they solve. Others hide their lack of specificity behind an impenetrable wall of jargon. Today the web has become an important tool clients use to vet possible vendors — if you can't clearly communicate what you do on your website, you may never get a second chance.

The prescription? Stand for something: a specific service offering, a vertical you serve best, or a special way you approach your trade. If you need help articulating your position with clarity, hire a professional copywriter to help you describe your services. In an increasingly web-centric marketing environment, clarity will be one of the best investments you ever make.

3. Out-of-Date Content

Does your website no longer reflect your current service offerings? Are the news headlines on your home page months or years old? Is your content showing it's age? You aren't alone — many firms struggle (or don't bother) to keep their web content up to date. But this common affliction can do a lot of harm.

Outdated web content can raise damaging questions in the minds of your prospects. "Where's this firm's attention to detail?" "Haven't they done anything newsworthy recently?" "Can't they afford to update their website?" Clearly, these aren't questions you want anybody asking about your firm.

A website is too visible and important to ignore. All business development roads lead back to your website, and you can't afford to have it in disrepair. If updating content is a technical hurdle, consider building your next website upon a content management platform that allows non-technical staff to edit content, insert photos, add pages, update navigation, even roll back to previous versions of a page. The confidence and flexibility a CMS provides is priceless.

Once you've got the tools you need, be sure to plan for making periodic updates. It will keep your site fresh and relevant.

4. No Measurement

Web analytics are commonplace today. Most hosting services offer at least a rudimentary package and several excellent web-based services are available for free. So why do so few professional services firms use these tools?

Many professionals don't realize how easy these tools can be to use — or what a wealth of useful information they provide. Google Analytics, for instance, presents much of its data in a clean, graphical format. You'll discover how many people are visiting your site on any given day, what pages are most (and least) popular, how many times a PDF is downloaded, and where visitors come from. But that's only the beginning.

With web analytics you can start to measure the effectiveness of your marketing tactics, discover what web content people actually want to read, and make critical adjustments to your website and your marketing campaigns. At last, you'll be equipped to back up your marketing choices with hard data and make well-informed decisions that affect your leads, conversions and bottom line.

5. Assuming All Traffic Goes Though Your Home Page

Most people think of the path a person takes through a website like a tree, with an entry "trunk" that branches out into a multitude of sub-paths. In fact, that is the way most websites are structured. But it's not necessarily the way all visitors experience your site. People don't always follow the same path through the site or even begin in the same place. Many visitors (particularly those coming from search engines) may enter the site through an interior page, and they may jump around in a non-linear fashion.

When designing your site, it can be helpful to consider these non-linear visitors and their overall experience. This means ensuring that key messages appear on popular entry pages so that people aren't disoriented when they arrive. And "breadcrumbs" — those hierarchical text navigation trails at the top of some web pages — can help people orient themselves within your site structure.

It often makes sense to develop landing pages around marketing campaigns — special pages outside your normal website that speak to a specific audience. Assuming you have a web metrics package available, you will be able to measure response rates to individual marketing efforts. This will give you a foundation on which to build a powerful, metrics-based marketing program.

6. Ignoring SEO

Many professional services firms still don't understand the value of search engine optimization (SEO). To ignore SEO is to turn your back on technology that helps prospects find you.

Even if you don't generate a lot of business from the Internet, prospective customers and recruits need to be able to find you through Google and other search engines. Many professional services websites fail even at this most basic level. Modern, standards compliant websites are built in a way that makes them friendly to search engines — which is a great start. But if you want to make certain people can find you and pave the way for Internet-based marketing in the future, you need to give serious consideration to professional keyword research and developing content that is crafted with your target audiences in mind. Don't cede this advantage to your competitors.

7. Poor Accessibility

Accessibility isn't just about helping a small number of blind people "see" your website content. To a much greater degree, it's about helping people who have no disabilities at all read the content on your website from a mobile phone or an older web browser. It's about helping ordinary middle aged business people with imperfect eyesight be able to enlarge tiny text on the screen. And for firms that contract with the government, accessibility is about complying with a set of government standards (Section 508) and demonstrating de facto support of those standards.

There is no excuse for building non-accessible websites today. When you redesign your website, insist on at least a minimal level of accessibility. It's just good business.