Wayne Libonati wrote to me recently asking me to critique his newly revamped web site. Here's what he wrote:

"Bob --

I would LOVE if you critiqued our site. We just had it re-done and I would love some outside feedback. Of course, all the people I asked to give an opinion gave a positive one. I am afraid they don't want to give their real opinion.

http://www.p-connect.com

Wayne Libonati

Well, Wayne, the good news is I don't think the people you asked to give an opinion were lying. This web site gives a GREAT first impression, and I have not doubts that the average person visiting it will come away with a very positive impression, as I had. I want to focus on the things that make this site really good first, so that others can appreciate the work.  And then at the end, not to disappoint, I will also point out some areas that the casual observer may not pick up, but that would help to bring this site from "really good" to "really great."

ALSO NOTE: I am using a new technique with this critique  for the screen shots. In my prior critiques I just dropped in the screen grab as big as I could so you could see what's going on. But full sized the get chopped off, and as soon as you start to reduce them, they break up pretty bad. So, starting with this critique, I will include small thumbnails in the post, and make them clickable to see the full-size image. Click on the thumbnail at left to view the home page in a new window. For all you critique fans, please comment on whether this approach works better. View Larger Image.

I grabbed a static image of the home page, but if you go to the PCI (Short, for Performance Connectivity, Inc.) web site, you'll be greeted with a really nice and well-done animated banner that walks you through the company's main services: Managed Services; Network Security; Voice, Video & Data Integration; Disaster Recovery. Each service is accompanied by a graphic element, a one-sentence "embellisher" and a bit of moving dots and text to breathe some life into the message and help attract attention to it. Even if you don't stick around long enough to read it, the production values of the banner are very high, so it gives an overall impression that this is a professional operation. This is really important when you want to -- no HAVE TO create a good first impression.

I bet this is why people who Wayne asked told him they liked his site.

Engaging Visitors With Compelling Offers

One effect of the animated banner is that it immediately draws your eye to it... and therefore everything above it -- including the main navigation tabs --tends to get literally overlooked. Once the eye is done with the banner, the next place it will go is to continue downward to the two large boxes below. This is a good thing, because one box has a really compelling headline, and the other box is offering something for FREE. Since the word FREE is in red, and displayed at an angle, it will win the tug of war.

The offer is: Free Small Business ADVISORY GUIDE. And the thing I really like about this is the way that PCI merchandise's the offer. Here's how they draw you in:

"What Every Small Business Owner Must Know About Protecting And Preserving Their Company’s Critical Data And Computer Systems..."

You need to click on a "more" link, and when you do, you come to a page that describes the guide in more detail, and then includes a very short form to complete -- just put in your company name, your name, and your e-mail address.

If the visitor doesn't immediately click on the "more" link in the free offer, they are likely to next look at the box to the left. It's got a very engaging headline: "Cut Your IT Costs & Never Pay for Expensive Computer Problems AGAIN!". The headline is accompanied by a small image of dollars flying in the wind.

Wow! That sounds pretty good to me. Tell me more. So, here's the copy designed to get you to ask for more: "As a business owner, I’m sure you would rather spend your time and money on projects that directly contribute to the growth and profitability of your organization rather than dealing with or fixing computer problems. If that is true, then this program is designed for YOU."

Compact Home Page Does Its Job

Just to the right of the animated banner are a few other links that might grab immediate attention. One is a link to "Testimonials." If you click on that link you come to a page with five very solid short testimonials, complete with the name and company offering up the praise. The quotes are extremely strong, and continue to build credibility for PCI. One of the other links takes you to a page that speaks to the value of outsourcing, and the third is labeled "Our Team."

Just below these links, and to the right of the free offers, is a section called "PCI News." Within this section are four links: two of the links take you to e-mail related services that the company is pushing. A third links to a CRN magazine article the includes mentions of PCI. And the fourth link promotes yet ANOTHER offer -- this one for a Free Network Audit.

The net of all this is a very compact home page that presents a very professional image, yet is chock full of engaging content for the small businessperson that might be looking for help with his or her computers.

Good Marketing Copy Throughout the Site

If you go through the site, and actually read the copy, a lot of it is really well done. For example, in the services section of the site, the company doesn't just give the standard vanilla description of each of the services. The copy also includes powerful benefit statements for many of the services:

Click to Enlarge The Services Page

Great Leveraging Of Autotask Technology

Like many of you, PCI uses Autotask's Client Access portal to enhance service delivery to its clients. With client access, PCI's clients can go into a web page that has the PCI brand, and from there they: get real-time billing reports, can submit service requests, can check the status of existing requests, and even collaborate with PCI on project tasks. But rather than just have this be a hidden value for customers, PCI has a section of its web site called "Support" where PCI does a great job at merchandizing this part of their service, which helps to differentiate them from the competition.

In another use of Autotask technology, PCI has created a number of forms throughout its site using the Autotask AutoForms technology that comes free with Autotask Pro. Because PCI uses AutoForms on their web site, whenever a prospect completes and submits the form, it automatically creates a new account and contact in Autotask, eliminating the need to do double entry, and giving instant access to the data. On the website, when you submit a form, you get a confirmation page that promises somebody from the company will respond within 1 hour. I submitted my form on 3:25 p.m. on Friday, and sure enough I received a personalize reply at 4:23 p.m. the same day. Not too shabby!

Click to enlarge the Client Support Page

What Wayne's Friends Won't Tell Him. . .

Nobody looks at web sites like me, so what I'm about to point out are things that are not really "deal breakers" when it comes to building a great site, but they are most definite flaws that we'd like to avoid when possible. Here are a few mistakes that PCI might want to correct, and you should try to avoid:

1. "Dead End" and "Worm Hole" Navigation. This site is riddled with "Dead End" pages ... that is, you are in one section of the site, click on a link and have no obvious way to get back . . . or you click on a link and drop into a worm hole that takes you to a page that has nothing to do with the section it lands. Here are some examples:

• You are on the home page, intrigued by the box that say you can cut your costs and never worry about spending money on computer repairs again. Sounds great. Click on the more link, and you land on a page with the headline: "Why Our Customers Are Flocking To Managed Services From Traditional Break-Fix Network Support." Click here to see an enlarged image of this page. Look at the top of the page and you will see that you are in the Company tab. But if you click on the Company tab from anywhere else in the site, this page does not exist. And, if you actually read the copy under this compelling headline, you only get presented with a problem... no solution. You have to read to the very end and find a text link, that says "Managed Services" and then click on it to get to the services section. The same thing happens when you click on the "more" link with the Free Business Guide offer. Of course, you can go back up to the Home tab on the top, but if all you are going to do is display a single page, the better way to handle this is to simply spawn a new window that can be read and closed. Or, if you have multiple links, as with the PCI News, you should retain the other options on whatever page you go to so that you can continue your flow and complete a section (if you wish) without having to keep going back to page 1.
• The same problem exists with the links in the PCI News section of the home page. If you click on the PCI Hosted E-mail" link, you get sent to a page deep into the services section. It's not obvious where you are, or how you get back to where you came from. There is a mysterious  P1, P2, P3 set of boxes that appear nowhere else on the site other than in the e-mail services subsection of the services site. When you click on these numbers, you go to another page, but it's just not clear whether these are all part of the same e-mail service or separate services.  

2. Inconsistent treatment of information. If you go through the various services in the services section, there is no single format that is followed. I like the treatment of the Managed Services section, which has a description of the service and then a terrific list of benefits. But when you look at the "Conventional Services" you get a conventional presentation: Just the description with no benefits. The "E-Mail Services" description has the mysterious number boxes -- multiple services here? Back-up/Disaster Recovery service has its own form on the bottom of it.

3. Poor "Tracking" Of Links To Content. Probably the weakest part of this site is the content in the "Company" tab, and yet PCI has two separate links to this page. The first link is one of the main navigation links at the top of the page. It says "Company." Usually, this is a pretty beefy part of a web site, where it talks about what makes the company behind the services better or different than the competition. It almost always includes profiles of the key members of the company since, in a service business, it's really the people who you are selling. The page starts off pretty good with a statement of the company's mission. But it breaks down from there. Just a bunch of disjoint bullet-points. All of the points are good, but it's just a hodgepodge of statements that lack coherence. And there is NOTHING about the people behind this company. Why is that? Wayne is mentioned in the CRN article included on the site, why not a profile on him, at least?

Along these lines, I have a problem with the Partners section of the site. It's a tab on the main navigation menu, but all it links to is a page with lots of logos on it under the headline: Computer & Network Technology Partners. There is no further explanation of the relationship of these companies to PCI, what they do, or why they are important. (Hey, where's the Autotask logo?)

4. Multiple Forms. You really want to reduce the number of different forms you have on your site. If you have a prospect that might be interested in more than one thing, are you going to expect them to put in their information each time? Better to have a single form on your site, and have many links to that form. PCI does a great job of putting an e-mail link and phone number at the bottom of every web page. It might be better to also include a link to a web form with check-off boxes for the areas of interest. By the way, you can create user-defined fields in your CRM to capture whatever questions you ask on your web site.

5. Form Over Substance. Oh, and I need to mention something about that animated banner that I was gushing about at the beginning of this Critique. There are two things I wonder about. The first is why it runs so slow? Maybe it is just my computer or my connection, but it takes over 40 seconds to go through the few frames. If that's the way it is built, I would speed it up dramatically... at least twice the speed. Most people won't sit there and watch it to the end at the pace it goes now. Also, if I follow the logic of the presentation, it looks like it goes through the company's main services individually, and then presents one summary page with all of them before ending with the company name and slogan. But when I watched it, it seems like it's missing something. Back-up/Discovery is the only service listed on the summary frame of the animation that is not presented in the intro part.

What Wayne's Friends Won't Tell Him. . .

Bottom line is that the flaws I find in this site are small compared to all the things that make it good. Congrats to Wayne and the PCI team.

Back to AXN Blogs