No way to run a railroad

Your Website can provide competitors a clear view into what your company really values and how your Website is funded. Here’s why.

We’ve been working on client reports this week, and I had a chance to look at some interesting graphs that map out how leading Websites have performed against our benchmarks over time. Among other things, these graphs show us where Web teams are focusing their efforts and are changing (or trying to change) the rules of the game. They are also a very useful early warning system that allows us to pinpoint important industry trends and where companies are focusing their Website investments.

But this time one graph stopped me in my tracks. Rather than displaying the undulating trends we normally see, this company’s graph looks like an EKG readout.  Scores peak as new capabilities are added, decline when they are pulled, and then flat line for 6 months or more.  The overall impression is a site that can’t seem to find its strategic way — or its operating mojo for that matter.

Or is it? Just for giggles, we mapped this site against the company’s fiscal year – and then we added a “mid year” line that pinpoints when budget “challenges” kick in and teams are asked to cut their budgets or justify why they need the money going forward. When we did this, a new picture emerged. Although some exceptions exist, you can see that site development jumps right after the new fiscal year budgets kick in – and either flat lines or declines right after the budget challenge period. Also keep in the back of your mind that this company’s fiscal year falls right after Christmas – which is a more than middling factor in this company’s future budgets.

It’s also easy to see which parts of this site are more or less strategic. In this graph, training and education is on a persistent decline, corporate marketing jumps when the company decided to burnish its reputation and then declines once the PR job is done. Ditto the focus on industry marketing.

In short, this graph is a bird’s eye view of how this company is running its railroad – and the effect this has on its Website.

Just for fun, let’s juxtapose IBM.com’s trends over the same period. In contrast to the graph above, this site performs on a pretty consistent basis. Notice that the company has been improving its commerce capabilities over the past three years and a push for better call to action in 2007 (yellow line) paid off in good practice-class scores. Both of these are selling related activities – and this fact should give IBM.com’s key competitors pause. This graph also shows how IBM.com is running its railroad. A steady hand on the throttle, and attention to the areas where a strategic investment makes sense.

And what can we learn from these two very different sets of Website behaviors? One thing that jumps out is the damage that can be created when a company expects Web teams to constantly fall on their budget swords and operate on a quarter to quarter basis. It also demonstrates the effect these behaviors can have on a site’s ability to establish a good or best practice standing. Consider this. Our EKG patient performs all over the board while most of IBM.com’s scores cluster in the good and best practice range.

When you compare these two graphs, you might think that our EKG patient is a small tech company that doesn’t get the Web, or has Web teams who are still learning the business. If so, you would be wrong. It’s actually one of the industry’s Web powerhouses — Dell.com.

siteIQ clients can access and download an extended report, including more Website-specific results and trends (login required). Not a subscriber? Find out more about the siteIntelligence Research Center.

Tags: best practice, brand, budget, corporate marketing, dell.com, ebusiness index, eSelling, good practice, ibm.com, investment, Strategy, training, website rankings, website trend