Up until 2003/4 the vast majority of web sites were functional brochures that were just put up because companies thought they needed to, they had no real function and very few ever created real results.
Then came the flash sites and the interactive ones which looked great but you could not find on Google.
Then came the intelligent sites which were built for Google and built so people could find them.
Today it is simply not enough to have one of the above sites unless all you want is an online brochure! In the business world sites have to be dynamic interactive ones with content that changes all the time. It needs to change because it keeps the site fresh and Google likes it a lot.
The site needs to contain interactive media like video and blogs, link to social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. A 2010 sites needs to extend to other areas on the web and have the same message delivered where people spend their time digitally.
A 2010 site should be clean, simple to follow, easy to understand, contain nice to follow links, capture my data if I want to give it and educate, NOT SELL (unless you are Amazon of course!)
Why
The reasons are many not least of which the trend for people to spend their time on social networking sites instead of reading the paper and watching TV. Businesses have to interrupt and engage with people here or their message will be lost and seen by less and less of an audience. If you don’t believe me in October 2009 the UK was the first western country to spend more on online advertising than offline advertising!
Getting up the search engines is so important and a 2010 site can get you multiple places on the first pages of Google and as the second largest search engine in the world is YouTube businesses should be putting significant effort here also.
Having a clean easy to follow site also means people spend longer engaged with it and are less lightly to be put off. You only get about 6 seconds to capture the interest or they are gone.
But the main reason for having a 2010 site is that if you don’t your competition will and they will kill you in the future.
