Tammy Landau

The other day someone asked me to give my “not so humble” opinion of their website.

I went to their site, I saw…well I didn’t really see-I couldn’t. Their font size was so small I could barely read it.

Staring over the top of my glasses, I strained to read anything-all that did was give me a headache. Hmm, that might work for a website that sells aspirin but this was a coaches website-yeah not good.

If you know anything about me by now you know that I shoot straight but could this coach “handle the truth”? I let them know that their website was aesthetically pleasing (a sure sign that they won’t get business) but that I could not read a thing on it. The font, from the home page to the contact page to the dreaded “what is coaching” page (please don’t do that) was unreadable unless you were about fifteen.

I mentioned this fact to the owner of said website and they replied back with “well my target market is anywhere from twenty somethings on up”.

Okay, first “twenty something on up” isn’t a market it’s a disaster. How different are you now, than when you were in your twenties? I rest my case. How can you appeal to that broad of a market (the answer is, you can’t). And B, even if you have young eyeballs resting on your site they better really really like you just to stay and sift through your mess and since you’re appealing to everyone in that “vanilla” sort of way chances are slim this will happen.

The newly minted coach thanked me and let me know they would “consider” talking to their web designer to change it. This is sort of like saying “I pigged out all weekend and now I’ve got to start my diet first thing on Monday” something that’s talked about often but rarely followed through on.

Mmm, I predict that this coach doesn’t make any money, has a strong belief in the “if you build it they will come myth”, and thinks their website is “pretty”.

The moral of the story:

1. If you have an ugly website with clear directions – hurray!
2. If your target market is as narrow as a European side street – yeah!
3. And if you believe you need to put yourself out there as opposed to your website-hurray and yeah!

You just might have a business that makes money. As any fifteen year old would say, awesome!

Now, where’s my aspirin?

This guest article was written by Tammy Landay, Renegade Business Coach, Copyright 2009. That means HANDS OFF! without permission and attribution.

Tags: Renegade Business Coach, Tammy Landau, target markets, website

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 1:25 am and is filed under business coaching . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.