Is your website a CHAMPION one?

This post is about my experience while exploring the websites of some top companies (mostly IT) from Australia. As a recruiter by profession and new to country, I scrolled through websites depending on my needs which in my case, is to know more about their profiles, kind of work they do, their leadership teams, employee strength, history, their current openings, testimonials and contact details. To begin with, I think company's one of the major goal should be attracting future talent and we should give more emphasis on to building the right website to achieve it.

This research enlightened me about the tiny ingredients we miss while building websites irrespective of the industry we belong to. The targeted customers can be a business, future employee, media, recruiter or any one who is keen to know more about your company. Below findings may differ depending on context and the kind of information the consumer is looking for. However, the basic skeleton to any website is a must.

There were several types of website pattern and experiences I came across. But majorly there were four basic categories to it:

1.Nascent Stage:

These are the website which have very basic information and mostly a static layout. The reason can differ depending on their current priority. They might have just begun with their operations and presence in market or poor UI/UX development, lack of funds etc. Even though the scale of the website, their work and employee strength is more, the depiction on site fails to showcase that.

2.Entangled:

Although many websites are information centric, but some of them were too much information, awry alignments, complicated language, huge classifications and missing innovative approaches like videos of recent events, usage of google maps with office locations, social media tags, support desk window etc.

3.Look & Feel:

Some of the media, marketing and advertising company websites blew my mind with their User Interface and User Experience. There was a wow factor as soon as you get into their website. They looked catchy and fancy but lacked emphasis towards few tiny yet important details like contact info, testimonials, missing updates on other social media sites about their company etc. Some websites also failed to highlight their product or service's USP which push customers to choose them over their competitors in market?

4.Champion:

These are a mixture of above two categories. Its impressive and influential. It forced me to follow the company immediately on social media. This shows the seriousness and passion towards their business. Their product representation were exceptional, simple to understand about what they do or pioneer into, usage of technologically advanced graphic, great testimonials, career section was remarkable(hassle free application process for candidates), good showcase of their leadership team and company culture.

According to Alexa, the most visited websites are Search Engines, Social Media, Car rentals, E-commerce, Sports, News, Payment gateways, Banking etc. I started realizing how important the website is for a company to succeed. Some of the aspects that an owner should check, post development of their website to measure the success rate:

• What is the most important thing that you want customer to look at?
• What is the target number of hits to be achieved over a period of time?
• What does a website have to offer to any customer which is unique?

Above are the simple observations made as a learner and would not have catered every detail or category. But definitely gives the benefactor a thought about investing on great website development, which is after all primary representation of their company to the world.

Feel free to share your comments/thoughts and suggestions, for knowledge is to share.

I would want to thank @Sandeepa Samuel @Aaron Hennig and @Imran Shariff for the support and inspiration to post an article.

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