Video Transcript

Hi Guys Matthew Woodward here and today I’m going to tell you how not to launch a website with a real live example.

Your website is the public face of your business, just like a retail store or a sales assistant represents your brand so does your website.

With each and every visitor you get, you only have 1 chance to make the right impression and keep them hooked forever.

Get it wrong though, and you will lose that person forever or do serious damage to your brand as a whole.

I find a lot of people rush out to build and promote a site before they take the time to understand their target audience.

What happens is sites get launched before they are really ready as people are eager to push forward.

All this does though is deliver a poor user experience while failing to deliver what your users actually want and address their key concerns.

Most people that contact me are only interested in pushing more traffic and pay no care or attention to the actual user experience.

Successful websites will work 24 hours a day 7 days a week to promote your business and your brand.

They should build trust and relationships on complete auto pilot while extracting as much value as possible from every single visitor whether that’s is through an email sign up, social share, sales or simply telling their friends.

So let’s take a look at exactly what not to do. Let me paint you a quick picture.

I’m looking for a new mobile phone contract and fibre broadband.

A new brand called Everything Everywhere has recently launched in the UK.

They provide both 4G mobile phone and fibre broadband services under one roof – perfect.

It has being heavily advertised across national media with some pretty lengthy TV spots.

I had placed an order with their competition but the sales staff lied to me to get my order.

By definition, I am the perfect lead.

So of all of that in mind I come to Google and like many people will do search for everything everywhere. A see that they’ve got the adwords number one result and the organic result there. Now let’s have a look at the organic result. Say hello to the most advanced digital communications company in Britain, the most advanced digital communications company that sounds exactly like what I need at the moment. So let’s see what their video’s about. Now I might just be being picky here but I would expect the most advanced digital communications company to be showing off their technical abilities by hosting their own videos not using another company to host which in this case YouTube. Perhaps I’m being a bit picky there but as a tech guy if I’m buying something from an advanced digital communications company I expect them to be serving their own content not somebody else. So that aside let’s take a look around at what we can see and can’t really see much about five here. Nothing really and perhaps if we have a look at the shop. Fibre broadband, perfect, that’s what I want fiber broadband. Click on that, oh! well that’s not good. Orange? I’m not on the orange website. Im on the everything everywhere website. Orange shop, ipads first no nothing to do with fiber broadband here at all and I fact im on a completely different company’s website now.

So I really don’t know where to go from here, it seems that the most the most advanced digital communications company in Britain can’t actually make a website. So let’s try something else. Enter the shop that might be a good start. No no perhaps that is wrong as well okay, explore, explore is always a good word that will help me to find over information. Let’s explore the website further. Oh! I want to learn about, yes I want to learn about your fiber broadband perfect, or perhaps not. So you kind of get the general idea, and it’s not really leaving the best impression on me at all. And I’m certainly not buying into that claim that you are the most advanced digital communications company in Britain. Your website does not give me the impression. But let’s give them a second chance and head back to Google.

So last time we clicked on the number one organic result, this time we’re going to click on the number one add words result. Now they’ll be paying for every person who clicks on this and they are also in full control of where the traffic lands. So let’s take a look at what they’ve got. And as we can see here the page is loading very slowly, still loading. Still loading and I’m on twenty four mega broadband here and it took a good 5 to 6 seconds to load and I actually get 24 magnified speed tests and I get the full 24. So it’s taken a good 5-6 seconds for the website to load. Just scrolling down the page, I’m not really sure what’s going on to be honest there’s no scroll bar here to navigate and it’s not apparently obvious what to do. Highlighting over these helps a little bit. But really it’s a bit confusing especially to people that aren’t familiar with websites and navigation and things like that. This is second nature to me and even I’m struggling to understand how it all fits together.

So let’s just click on fiber broadband here. And even clicking on that is hard work. So there we go, fiber broadband, that’s what I want to know about. Yes, yes fiber broadband I’ve just told you for the third time that is what I want to know about thank you. Let’s click on explore, and now we’re actually getting some useful information about the fiber broadband and what it offers and the different, we can look at speed and coverage. And we can share the love with our family. So let’s see can I benefit, can I actually get a fiber broadband from this company. Let’s have a look at their broadband checker. I’m expecting to enter my phone number or post code and address somewhere, no it’s telling me to choose a plan but I don’t even know if I can get the plan yet. Okay, okay now we’re actually going wrong here, let’s explore again, let’s go back to fiber and have a look at what’s going on here. Well clicking that doesn’t actually do anything. Let’s try the coverage checker, perfect, that’s exactly what we want. Only that doesn’t do anything either okay. Let’s try the shop maybe the shop will help us out. Fiber broadband yes that’s what we want, oh no it doesn’t do anything either, how about this, no that doesn’t do anything.

Let’s enter the shop. Maybe entering the shop is a good start. No that doesn’t do anything either. So I still don’t know if I can buy the product. And even if I did know that I can buy the product, I couldn’t buy the product; it’s really bizarre and a bad experience. So let’s head back a page maybe I clicked on something wrong here, what’s this about okay super-fast and oh! if I combine it with my mobile service I can save sixty pound well that’s perfect my mobile phone contract is what I want fiber broadband, excellent perfect customer.

About broadband maybe that will help me. Speed and price checker. You see what I’m getting at here, you know, I actually spent nearly half an hour this morning and this is what led me to create this video trying just to find out a price on how much it would cost a fiber broadband with them and with my mobile phone contract to them. And it is absolutely next to impossible. On top of that you can’t even order the fiber broadband online, you have to call them. Now these guys are the most advanced digital communications company in Britain they are their own words. Let’s see what a competitor can do. Plus net, fiber broadband and phone break down the packages nice and easily there’s the usage there’s the speeds find out more. If I want to check availability I can do that. Enter your phone number and post code, and up here look you can clearly see this is a start of a sales funnel to place the order online. So if a competitor can do that why can’t the most advanced digital communications company in Britain do that? It really is bizarre; it is beyond me how this is being launched.

Another thing that popped out while I was browsing the site was this asking for my feedback and what I think about the website. Now this is really intrusive, I’m just learning about the company trying to find out what they offer, just an initial point of contact if you like and already they’re trying to push feedback on me which I’m not in the position to give really at the moment. So you’d think it will be as simple as clicking on no thanks. But as you can see, clicking on no thanks no matter how many times you click it the message does not go away. But if you click on take part, stray away the survey pops up without hesitation. So if you start filling this out, are you over the age of 16 yes, how likely will you be to recommend the EE website to friends or family? Definitely wouldn’t and they’ll ask you why, you’re gonna find out why. This is just really bad, look how intrusive that is and I can’t even get rid of it. I’m actually forced now to return back to Google and start my search again. It’s really a bad user experience.

I’ll be honest the site has left an awful impression on the business as a whole. I certainly do not trust them or feel comfortable ordering from them. How many other people feel the same way?

I was the perfect lead, ready to sign up! How on earth can the site fail to convert me into a sale?

In fact what it actually did is turn me cold – certainly makes the competition look more appealing.

They had the opportunity to not only gain my business, but take it away from key competitors at the same time.

From now on any form of Everything Everywhere advertising will go ignored – they have lost me forever and you can be sure I’ll be telling all my friends about it in the pub later and every time an advert comes on the TV.

I really do not understand what is going on here. I really do expect more from major brands.

They have failed to identify any of the key concerns their potential customers may have.
The site does not provide any answers to those questions and only confuses the user further.
The user experience is basically non-existent and is currently setup to do lasting damage.
It is clear there has being little to no testing of the site.
I’m going to make the assumption that corners were cut to meet deadlines, budget requirement and appease pressure from decision makers at the cost of the user.
I find it laughable that people get paid big money to produce sites like this.

But you haven’t heard the best bit yet.

The funny thing about all of this they have spent 4 million pounds on a national advertising campaign

It’s running across the UK right now on television, in press and online.

Honestly I’m not even joking they are spending 4 million pound to promote a website that delivers a damaging lasting impression.

I’m really lost for words…

So after seeing that do you think you can do better?

Remember that budget isn’t everything and that delivering an exceptional user experience is.

Make sure you put time and effort into getting the basics and foundations of the site right before any form of promotion. Certainly before pissing 4 million up the wall anyway.

You only have one chance to build a trust and a relationship with your visitor so whatever you do, make sure you don’t blow it!

Thanks for watching my tutorial! If you have any questions head over to my site and click on ask a question in the header navigation.

If you want to see more tutorials like this then don’t be afraid to subscribe in my sidebar or at the end of one of my posts.

See ya!