Is Your Website Making the Mistake of Being Simply Brochureware?

A business owner showed me her website as part of a discussion as to why her business has been off the past year.

Although the economy might be having some impact, I told her that one possible explanation is that she does not have an active online social media presence and that her website is basically brochureware.

Wikipedia defines brochureware as:

A brochureware website is a business website that has very infrequently updated content. Often the site has been developed as a direct translation of existing printed promotional materials, hence the name. Brochureware sites therefore take little advantage of the capabilities of the web that are unavailable in printed publication.

And, indeed, this particular website took little advantage of the capabilities of the web, including the benefits of using social media to connect with your prospective target markets.

The more I thought about this conversation the more I realized that NOT having a social media presence is truly beginning to hurt businesses. I continually read articles quoting statistics of how many people first go online to find local businesses as well as check the recommendations of friends and strangers.

If people are looking for your kind of business online, and your only online presence is a brochureware website that ranks very low with search engines (which love fresh material continually being added to a website), what chance does your business have of being found online?

There's another consideration as evidenced by the website of another company I looked. This website made the company appear to be the same as similar companies. But I happen to know that this particular company has a Unique Selling Proposition – a USP that its brochureware website does NOT convey.

Someone asked me if I thought her website "pretty"? I explained that I evaluate a website on its effectiveness for what it wants to get across to site visitors. The large photo of a tall office building that had nothing to do with the website's business might be "pretty," but it also distracted rather than added to the site's home page message.

What is the purpose of this blog post?

To act as a warning bell to businesses that have not yet accepted (and acted upon) how social media has impacted all areas of offline and online marketing.

For more information on this topic, see the Miller Mosaic blog post "Facebook Has Forever Changed the Face of Small Business Marketing"

Take action now rather than waiting until you've been left so far behind by your competitors that you may never be able to catch up.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing. Download the company's free report "5 Tips for Staying Top of Mind With Your Prospective Target Markets" at www.millermosaicllc.com/los-angeles-s...