A couple of weeks ago I ranted about the word “welcome” on website home pages. Today I shall list a few more things I don’t want to see on your website.
It’s Not a Filing Cabinet
The thing to grasp is your website is not your online filing cabinet. The words, “We’ll put it on the website” should always be met with the response “You must be joking!”
The sorts of things I mean are:
- minutes of meetings
- organisational governance arrangements
- policies and procedures (except a few that are relevant, eg your website security policy, which can be tucked away where no-one looks – its presence encourages visitors to trust you even though they don’t read it!)
These have no place on your website! How can I put this? Nobody at all cares about any of this stuff. Get rid of it! If you need to share documents there are plenty of options:
- Dropbox
- Google Groups
- email is actually a good way to communicate this material
For cloud working I’ve found Google Groups works. Some people object to joining Google but once they see the benefit they usually give in!
No-one Cares About Your Mission Statement!
Another thing I do not want to see is aims and objectives, vision statements, mission statements and all the paraphernalia of corporate speak. Especially if you’re not a corporation.
Things I don’t want to know include:
- we offer excellent service
- we aim to be the best in the UK, Europe, the world
- we’ll deliver your pizza before it gets cold
You get the idea? Reverse any of these and you’ll see that they are meaningless. These don’t differentiate between your offer and anyone else’s so there’s no point in including them. If you say these things it means your offer cannot be serious.
Focus on explaining exactly what you offer in the language your likely followers or customers will use. Pompous mission statements simply don’t have any impact.
What do you hate to find on websites?