February 7, 2007

I'm *Over* Under Construction

Guest Column - Lena West, xynoMedia

Under Construction pages stink. You know the kind...the signs that people put up on their web sites to let you know that they're still working on their site? Most of them have some sort of a stick figure with a hard hat, shovel and a mound of dirt. Many even make good use of construction orange. Some say "coming soon".

It says to people, "I'm OK with publically showing a half-baked effort on my projects." You can only imagine what they're thinking you'll do with their projects.

It also frustrates and alienates people who are genuinely looking for information that they need to make business decisions or, decide whether they want to work with you. Egads! I mean, c'mon, how many people do you think are really going to come back to your page after seeing an under construction sign?

I speak from experience. Our company had a "holder page" for YEARS. Not good. Especially not good for an IT consulting company. Doubly especially not good for an online strategy consulting company.

While my nerves are usually grated by these under construction signs, I saw one last week that DID make me chuckle and therefore took the edge off. It was this one by Flickr.

Don't launch the page or the web site until it's all complete. How you do anything is how you do everything.

If you ABSOLUTELY MUST launch your web site without being totally finished, at least have the good sense to add a keen lead generation tool to the construction page so that you can build your list in the process. It's all about strategy, baby.

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