In the last month, one venture capitalist has asked me to review the websites for two of his most promising early-stage firms.
My team and I worked through the method we use to determine content density, site traffic, what the competition is doing, and technical plumbing.
What jumped out of these two analyses was that both of these ventures were serving quite specific markets. Both ventures had little or no competition. Both ventures were essentially invisible in the major online search engines. The only way to locate these two companies was by running a specific, multiword query.
When my analysts debriefed me, one major point jumped from the pages of analysis, charts and interview notes. That point was that the websites were a waste of money.
We reported our findings to our client, and he was thunderstruck. He said, “You are paddling against the current. The company executives have insisted on websites. We have had other consultants tell us that we need to make them compelling.”
After he finished telling us what he thought was the rationale for spending thousands of dollars, we went through some of the research findings we compiled.
First, we showed data from website tracking services like Compete.com that the traffic for the sites was modest. For one site, Compete.com had no data. We showed similar data from Google Analytics and from the Web analytics tools we use. The facts were clear. The thousands of dollars were not generating traffic, and there was no evidence that sales or leads were coming from a public Web presence.
Second, we reviewed case examples of companies with a website and a frequently updated blog. One of the case examples we showed was MarkLogic, an XML database startup based in Silicon Valley. The company’s website traffic was strong, according to the monitoring services we consulted. The key to success was that MarkLogic had integrated its Web presence into its other public relations, marketing and sales activity. The website, therefore, was one cog in a larger machine.
Third, we presented examples of online information that were social in nature. We showed Facebook pages and examples of Twitter campaigns. Facebook is a free service with more than 500 million users. A business can have a Facebook presence and use that system to present static information as well as fast-changing, up-to-the-minute text, pictures and videos about products and services. Twitter is a free or low-cost broadcast service. Instead of sending an old-fashioned Publishers Clearing House direct mail campaign by the U.S. Postal Service, we showed how companies like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble were using social media to build their brand and make sales.
