A post on the Orangecoat blog titled; “COMING SOON”, THE NEW “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” reminded me of a serious pet peeve of mine.
Yes that.
When those images and words are sitting on your Web Site home page for years – you have a problem.
There may be a myriad of reasons that you have it there, ranging anywhere from laziness, stubbornness, denial, incompetence or forgetfulness. None of which are good.
True Story
The Orangecoat post reminded me of a business that I had seen with an Under Construction label on their Web Site over 18 months ago. So I did the logical thing, and decided that I wanted to see if the Web Site had actually been promoted to a real, working, 24 x 7 marketing Web Site, or if it was still Under Construction.
I have to side track for a minute!
Now this business has a fairly long name, and their Web Site domain is one of those where they took the first letter of each word to make up the name. Sure that can be a good solution if you are a household name like International Business Machines (IBM)
But for most of us – we aren’t going to be able remember where your Web Site is when it is a pretty random string of letters. We are probably going to have to search for it using a Search Engine.
Well, since I could not remember that businesses Web Address I used Google to search for it – And,,, Ummm – I could not find it.
Since I also used a city name to narrow the search results, what I did find was a local business directory that mentioned that business & had a link to their Web Site.
But, back to my story
I am sure you are getting the idea -when a direct search for your company name does not show up when I search for you???
And yes – 18 Months later the Web Site is still Under Construction!
That is a pure business failure.
Should Under Construction, or Coming Soon ever be used?
Very very rarely.
Sure – one example could be a new Web Site or Web Page for a new product or service that you are keeping hidden until the end of the month when the marketing push hits. But you have a very finite date on that.
The SMB Takeaway
There is no excuse for having Under Construction for 18 plus months on your Web Site.
In this digital day and age, your Web Site is a critical communication tool. Build it.
Maybe you won’t be happy with your initial, Day 1 content. But do it. Iterate and improve as you have the time and money.
But don’t just leave it Under Construction – or Coming Soon
You can get updates to this blog by clicking the RSS icon on the Home Page!
1 Comments.