The idea that a generic, faceless, edited quote about how great you are will make me want to buy your product is absurd. Please stop using them.

I know you’ve handpicked those statements.

If you don’t give me something authentic, I’ll find it elsewhere. I have lots of options for real opinions on a business – Google Local, Yelp, Facebook, Foursquare, among others.

I want to hear from the people that don’t like you,  not just you’re biggest fans. I want a real view of you, not the filtered version.

I want the testimonial to come directly from the person. I want to see a photo of the author and see the comment linked back to an online profile (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) somewhere so I know its a real person. I want to see what the user typed themselves, not what you edited.

The generic testimonails (i.e. “This is the best thing ever. Everyone should have 3 of your product”) are a waste of space at best, and at worst, an insult to me and the rest of your prospective buyers.

There are better options:

• Unedited video interviews
• Unedited audio interviews

And even better options:

• Facebook comments widget
• Disqus comments for pages
• Custom comment tools

If you don’t know how to use one of these above, find out how you can. The old method is a waste of time.

Photo credit: Adrian Clark

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If you have a recognizable brand name like Sony, then your homepage can be whatever you want. People already know the ‘who’ and ‘what’ of Sony. If you’re not Sony, your homepage needs to be as clear, impactful, and intriguing as a top-notch elevator pitch.

If your homepage cannot describe what you offer without the use of  a run-on sentence, the consumer can’t either. With a growing percentage of the Internet world communicating in 140 characters or less, I’m not sure anything longer is effective. Make it easy for people to see your unique value.

So here is where I see most businesses going wrong.

I’ll be meeting with a company to map out their overall web strategy, message, and website architecture. I’ll attempt to get agreement on the core product or service and the conversation goes something like this:

Company rep one: “Well we mostly do ABC, but if someone asks we’ll also do XYZ.”
Company rep two: “Oh, and don’t forget about our commercial division of LMO services.”
Company rep one: “Yes, and once we did DEF for a customer, so we want to talk about that, too.”

STOP.

In an effort to capture this outlying business, companies are making their pitch clumsy. Don’t clutter your homepage, or even the rest of your website for that matter, by trying to be everything to everyone. This type of ambiguity will typically lead to heavy brand confusion, and we all know that the confused mind says “no.”

If you have multiple divisions that would potentially confuse a client when they’re seen together, then they shouldn’t be seen together. This is why Honda has separate websites for its cars division and its lawn equipment division. “Relevance” is key to keeping a visitor’s attention. Lawn tractors are not relevant to a car shopper, so Honda separates them. Their presence would detract from the car shopping experience. If a topic wouldn’t fit right in an elevator pitch, it doesn’t belong on the homepage. Dump it.

Chose your core business, or related group of core businesses, and focus the message on the expected decision maker.  Retail and commercial customers rarely have the same needs, so its rare that the message would be same. If you want to promote multiple unrelated core products, or promote to multiple unrelated buyer profiles, consider multiple websites. Yes, it adds expense, but they each will perform better than one confusing website.

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