I got an email from Marketing Profs for a seminar entitled “Demolish the Roadblocks on Your Website: Clearing a Path for Customer Action, Sales, and Loyalty“. I’m not here to sell this seminar, I just found the lead-in couple of paragraphs selling the seminar a great post all on its own.

“Too many people create websites that look beautiful. But what we really need are websites that WORK beautifully. It’s not enough to put some content up. It’s not enough to launch and leave an application or a new website design. If you want a website that makes money you must continuously improve the completion times of your customers’ top tasks. The most important thing you need to manage on your website is your customers’ time.”

This is Coolaid that we drink all day every day; it is more important to be found, answer questions, generate a lead, than it is to look the prettiest. Of course, the website can’t be a junker either, or that becomes a barrier (lack of credibility) all in itself. Just don’t spend all your money on the design, save 75% of your budget for promoting the website and answering your customers’ questions with webinars (and downloads of recorded ones), case studies, and white papers.