You know I’m all about doing your research.
It might sound boring AF to you (unless you’re a nerd like me), but it’s true. Research is 70-80% of my work.
It’s the hard work required to immerse yourself in your market, especially as a consultant.
Well, today I saw something that triggered me.
This company I really respect just did a complete website redesign and changed their positioning. All good stuff, until I read about their process.
They reversed it completely. Starting from their blog pages, then services and then finally their homepage.
Now it’s admirable that they did everything internally (at least they did something!). But when it comes to positioning and niching down like they did (from generic, to focusing on a specific industry), your homepage should be your main focus.
Not some afterthought or navigational piece.
Your value proposition and positioning, what you do, how and who you do it for are the essence of your homepage.
Instead they claimed they did the research, but ended up with copy like this:
“Your eCommerce growth accountants [Company] offers best-in-class bookkeeping, accounting, virtual CFO, and tax services for 7 and 8-figure eCommerce businesses looking to scale.“
“Growth accountants”? “best-in-class”? And it’s all about you!
I face palmed myself.
Such a shame.
And it’s likely that saving the homepage for last made them go with the buzzwords.
This is a lesson in actually using the research data you collect. And points out the fact that running the research is also different from knowing how to use it.
You need to have both.
That said I still think they did a good job, it’s a big scary change and this is a first step.
This stuff is tricky. A bit of an art and science.
Cheers,
Chris
