Despite keeping me pretty busy, a lot of people seem to be afraid to be put in the website spotlight. I thought that might happen… but for different reasons. I know that being critiqued can trigger some fears. The problem is, I’m hearing a lot of crappy excuses. I’m not surprised – I hear them all the time, of course. But today, I’m calling BS on all these “excuses” why you aren’t asking for feedback about your website.
“It’s not quite ready yet for feedback – I’m still changing some things.”
I did my first website project when I was in high school, coding by hand, as an extra special project for my typing teacher. (Yes, really.) Over 15 years later, I’ve still yet to see a perfect website. There isn’t such a thing. Your website, just like the rest of your business, is fluid: it will continue to change and evolve.
The fact of the matter is that feedback early on in any process can save you time, money, and hassle.
When I hear “I’m not quite ready yet for feedback,” it typically lands like “I’m procrastinating for some other reason.”
If you’re not ready, what’s stopping you from getting ready?
If you’re procrastinating, what are you afraid of?
“I already asked some people for feedback and everyone said it was fine. They loved it.”
Ok, if you asked “several” people for comments on your latest and greatest, and nobody gave you any critiques, then you didn’t ask the right people.
You need to get feedback from people who aren’t afraid to tell you what’s not working.
A lot of people want to “be nice” and tell you they like it. You don’t want nice, you want feedback – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
See above: there’s no perfect website.
“Well, you see, our website is a special circumstance…”
Yup, I hear that about as often as I hear the chickens clucking across the street in the morning.
(Since I live in Portland, that would be… every day.)
Everybody treats their website like their baby – unique, special, to be coddled and cooed after. As you should – websites are important pieces of marketing material these days.
But in this thing we call the World Wide Web, we’ve all got to share. Everybody’s using the same browsers, the same smartphones, the same social media networks. If your website ends up being the odd man out, chances are people won’t think it’s special, they’ll just think it’s really weird.
Let me tell you, when it comes to the Internet, weird and unusual does not get the sale. Your products and services can be as unique as you like, but if your website design and organization doesn’t make sense to anybody else, you’ve lost the customer.