Why do firms, companies or other organisations create a website ? Most of them do not provided webbased services, so a direct ‘client – company’ connection can’t be made ! But still each and everyone of them would love to be ‘online’…
So why are they so eager to commit a part of there communication budget to the internet ? Well mainly to get a face, to get some recognition for the small part they ( could ) play in our day to day life !
Does it work ? Most of the time, I would think that it does… a good visual campaign helps people decide if they should apply their money to the companies service or trade ! I do most of my ‘window shopping’ online, so it makes a difference !
But it isn’t always easy to set up the correct architecture to have the rigth impact ! There is that ‘budget’ factor that has to be incorporated, it draws an invisible wall and sets the maximum reach.
Let me illustrate with a real life example, that involves my own little me 😉 !
I’m a proud member of the WingTsjun organistation, headquarters based in Germany, but with several schools around the world !
So assume you would be looking to have a go at this type of martial art, what would you do ? Well, a good guess would be to search the internet to find a school near to your own current location !
So you would most likely be expecting following thing :
- A site for your own country ( if possible translated )
- An overview of all schools ( sorted per region ) for the given country
- A good information page of the current training hours and location
- Overall information regarding the style, the teachers, the school infrastructure, etc…
But creating these items, involves manual labour, money and time ! Our current solution offers most of the expected items, but there is still room for improvement ( remember that invisible wall 😉 )…
We currently provide a specific translated site for each country, but they are not home based ! Meaning, not a domain URL for each country… let me be frank here, when I really want to find a website about some firm I need to locate, I use my country specific Google search engine !! So a country specific domain name would make sense !
But does this mean we don’t target the right people now ? No, that isn’t the problem… but the audiance could get bigger by changing some of the current architecture !
Does it mean we have a wrong architecture now ? No, we just have a different approach and use a central starting point, hereby creating a feeling of ‘one’ ! Coming out and saying, ‘we are a team’, not seperate groups…
So sometimes the corporate slogan could have an impact on the outline of the architectural design.
Currently it just fascinates me how I can look at the current end result and wonder why some choices were made and what could change… it just helps me decide for future projects !
