Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders — and well ahead of one of their major partners — HP.

When I rolled up the first quarter 2008 usability numbers this week, a couple of interesting facts jumped out. First, Newegg.com’s product marketing score is nearly 71%, which puts it on par with the eBusiness Index average (71.38%) — and places it in close proximity to enterprise systems heavyweights in the effectiveness rankings. Second, and more important, all three reseller sites — Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com — earn e-selling-related usability scores that are well above the eBusiness Index average, and actually rival those of the ultimate online channel — Dell.com.

Admittedly, these are two bright spots in an otherwise checkered usability landscape for these companies.  Website design and navigation & architecture scores average around 60% — well below the target 75% score. Corporate marketing comes in at an embarrassing 44%, and services marketing & support scores sit in the mid 30% range. To add insult to injury, these sites clock equally appalling training & education scores that average around 30%. Community/industry marketing scores are the true disappointment, however. Here, the mean usability score doesn’t even crack 25%. So much for Web 2.0 among leading reseller sites.

Despite these bumps in the road, I have to give the teams managing Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com credit for focusing on “Job One” in their universe: making products easy for visitors to purchase online, and delivering persistent call to action elements that encourage visitors to become customers. These behaviors, combined with competitive pricing that often meets or beats the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, are undoubtedly partially responsible for the growing popularity of these (and other) reseller sites.

It’s my contention, however, that the real reason these sites are selling record numbers of their partner’s/supplier’s products is an architectural structure that facilitates forward momentum based on customer specifications and/or requirements. At these sites, visitors dictate the context in which they view products, and no matter the route taken, pricing and the ability to begin the purchasing process are central elements of the click stream. In fact, in contrast to some enterprise-class sites where purchasing the exact same product often requires navigational gyrations through  mountains of poorly organized content, these leading reseller sites make online purchasing a breeze.

What did strike me,  is just how disproportionately these three laggers supply content across their sites—and the fact that the zones in the most trouble are the ones that present information critical to the company’s core business model or market strategy

Over time, we’ve illustrated this point in a variety of ways, including graphs that show relative performance by category; trendlines that demonstrate competitive strengths & weaknesses; charts that identify content density; and tables that list overall scores. This past year, however, we’ve been using a handy little analysis tool called star charts (a.k.a. spider graphs) that allow us to look at evaluation data in a whole slew of new ways, including a view that demonstrates how well rounded a site’s content portfolio really is.

So, when it came time to roll up the fourth quarter 2007 siteIQ eBusiness Index evaluation numbers, I thought it might be interesting to use a star chart that maps competitive performance by category to illustrate just how balanced sites like HP.com & IBM.com really are. Then I decided to juxtapose their content allocation against some of the less stellar performers on the Index including Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com.

Now, I’ve got to tell you that I wasn’t totally surprised at what I saw when I finished entering the data and looked at the chart. HP.com & IBM.com provide a relatively well-rounded volume of documentation & resources across our BenchMark categories. Conversely, irregular & inconsistent assets are more the norm at Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com. What did strike me, however, is just how disproportionately these three laggers supply content across their sites—and the fact that the zones in the most trouble are the ones that  present information critical to the company’s core business model or market strategy.

HP.com and IBM.com may not be perfectly balanced, but they are leagues ahead of other sites

Case in point, take a close look at Alcatel-Lucent.com’s performance in the two categories most critical for network systems Websites; product & channel marketing. Based on our latest evaluations, neither zone delivers a very robust set of resources. Ditto the site’s support & training zones, two categories of additional importance to networking vendors. Alcatel-Lucent.com does kick butt, however, in online recruiting; the site beats even HP.com & IBM.com.

Next, check out how EDS.com’s competitive performance maps by category. Although it comes close to the target in services marketing, obviously the most significant zone of any professional services firm’s site, its corporate marketing information, which is arguably as important given the industry segment, is sorely lacking. That said, EDS.com comes out slightly ahead of all other sites mapped in navigation & architecture.

Meanwhile, with the exception of Website design, Lenovo.com is missing the mark in every tracked category, and falls miserably below the competitive target in those most important to its business model. What’s more, HP.com is smoking Lenovo.com in key areas including product, services & community/industry marketing and eSelling. This can’t be good since HP.com sells PCs online, just like Lenovo.com.

Unfortunately, Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com’s irregular delivery of assets not only means that these sites map erratic category-by-category performance, it also indicates that they provide an inconsistent experience for visitors. More important, the lack of densely delivered content in mission critical areas suggests that users are likely to encounter gaps in information that can hinder—or halt—their ability to achieve desired objectives.

All of this brings us back to the point I made at the beginning of this blog entry: one of the hallmarks of a best practices Website is a well-rounded volume of content, tools, and resources that are delivered in a manner that allows visitors to easily achieve stated tasks & goals.

Noting that the operative word is well-rounded, however, volume becomes less important. Sure, HP.com & IBM.com will continue to earn competitive leadership because they boast behemoth content catalogs, but that doesn’t mean that smaller sites like Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com can’t appear equally as consistent as the “big dogs” in their delivery of information. Unfortunately, the view illustrated in the competitive performance by category star chart indicates that achieving this feat will require the serious augmentation of resources in some critical site zones—and the reduction of superfluous assets in others.

As Web 2.0 and audience marketing strategies play out, we believe that Web teams  will need to tackle three key Website challenges: consistency, context, and community

In a recent siteIQ eBusiness Index Report, we noted that enterprise systems Websites (IBM.com, HP.com, Sun.com and Dell.com) took 2006 off to catch their collective breaths. That’s probably a good thing, since 2007 is stacking up to be a barn burner by any standard. Certainly Web 2.0 will play a huge role this year–but that’s not the only challenge enterprise systems vendors will face. 2007 will also be the year when community, industry and solutions marketing will take center stage on the Web.

As Web 2.0 and audience marketing strategies play out, we believe that IT industry Web teams will need to tackle three key Website challenges: consistency, context, and community. Here’s why.

Consistency. Once upon a time, consistency was a top down issue defined by a site’s global look and feel and standard page templates. Today, consistency is all about how well your site works together as a whole. In other words, whether your zones play together like a well-tuned orchestra, or act like a bunch of disjointed rock bands.

Global Web teams need to get deadly serious about enforcing standards

In 2007, site zones will need to do more than just look alike; they will need to act alike when visitors are whisked from one zone to another. This means that global Web teams need to get deadly serious about enforcing standards. Product pages should feature the same types of content located in the same places on the page. Content links must be accurately labeled and must deliver the promised information. The site’s content voice must also be consistent across zones.

And why is this important? Let us count the ways. New solutions, community and industry marketing zones are, at the end of the day, consolidation points for content housed in other zones. Cross-selling and up-selling also requires liberal use of content located elsewhere on a site.

And then you have the Google factor–arguably the perfect case for cross zone consistency. Since, on average, major IT sites get a minimum of 25% of their traffic from search engines, this means at least a quarter of your potential buyers are entering your site via pages that are launching pads to somewhere else on the site. If these pages don’t include relevant content–and feature clearly identified links to related resources–visitors will simply hit the back button and go to the next link on the Google list. In the real world, the odds are that the next link is a page on your competitor’s Website.

Context. Given that most leading IT sites have been on the airwaves for at least ten years, it’s beyond us why most haven’t figured out a fundamental truth. Most visitors don’t understand the difference between a company’s products and product families, much less how they work. Because of this, it’s incumbent upon IT vendors to present their offerings in the visitor’s context—and present products within product families in context to each other. Price, price ranges, technical specs and features are all part of the contextual cloth. Presenting products based on the business problems they solve and/or objectives they achieve are even more powerful ways to connect visitors with the right products.

Most visitors don’t understand the difference between a company’s products and product families, much less how they work

In 2007, creating context is going to be a critical requirement for one important reason. New solutions, community, and industry marketing zones are essentially high level contextual plays. Each starts the visitor’s journey by (presumably) limiting offerings to those relevant to the target audience.

That done, the job passes to product and services marketing pages. These pages carry the real contextual burden–but few are currently designed for the task. At minimum, these pages need to clearly position and describe different product options, and deliver easy to understand product comparison charts. Interactive product finders and solution builders are equally as important–and when properly designed, can lend a Web 2.0 flavor to a site.

Community. Given the discussions above, it won’t come as much of a surprise that community is the third item on our list of key challenges in 2007. Here, IT Website teams face a double whammy: the need to develop truly useful audience-specific zones (e.g. SMB, home/home office, enterprise, IT professional, and the always challenging “executives” zone)–and the need to populate these zones with relevant Web 2.0 community behaviors. If you are following the classic definition of a “community,” HP.com has established a marginal lead over IBM.com and Dell.com. That shouldn’t come as a surprise since HP.com’s entire architecture is designed around community marketing.

On the other hand, if you are looking for the industry’s current best practice for presenting and positioning communities, that kudo goes to Sun.com. Sun’s definition of a community may be 180 degrees different than other enterprise systems vendors, but there’s no doubt that it knows how to make it easy for visitors to find the communities it has.

And what about Web 2.0 behaviors? With the exception of developer zones and a few moments of interest, such as IBM.com’s “Executives” zone and small business podcasts, we aren’t seeing many Web 2.0 behaviors popping up across community or audience zones on enterprise systems Websites. That’s a shame because these are the pluperfect venues for the types of stickiness and two-way conversations that Web 2.0 enables. That’s not to say, of course, that audience-specific Web 2.0 behaviors aren’t already taking root elsewhere on the IT Web. For some inspiration and ideas, let your fingers do the walking over to (you guessed it) Cisco.com.

Oracle.com doesn’t bother with sorting by company size; on Oracle.com it’s every company for himself

I was in a meeting the other day with a client providing a readout of their most recent siteIQ results. Our diagnostics analysis was around the site’s community marketing effectiveness—and the conversation turned to the  problems that crop up when a company doesn’t clearly identify how it defines small business vs. medium-sized businesses on the site. I was astonished when I receive push back on this notion and a suggestion that small business and medium business definitions were pretty much standard across IT companies on the Web.

What Web are these folks looking at?

If you cruise around the IT Web, the one thing that is obvious is that there are few standards, and even fewer IT vendors identify who fits in what bucket. Just for giggles, consider this:

IBM.com operates separate small business and medium business zones; presumably enterprise customers have full run of the site. HP.com divides its site into Home/Home Office, Small & Medium Business, and Enterprise. Dell.com sorts by Home/Home Office, Small Business and Medium & Large Business zones. No standards here and definitions are blissfully absent from these sites.

Want to play with software? CA.com offers Home and Home Office, and Small and Medium Business zones; like IBM.com, enterprise companies are presumably left to wander around the site. Symantec operates separate Home/Home Office, Small and Midsized Business, and Enterprise Solutions zones. SAP limits its community play to a Small Business Solutions zone; I guess medium and large businesses have to fend for themselves. Oracle.com doesn’t bother with sorting by company size; on Oracle.com it’s every company for himself. When you roll all of these behaviors up, its pretty clear that standards in the software industry are nonexistent. Of the companies discussed, only Symantec.com bothers to provide any definitions.

Finally, no run is complete without some quality time in the networking pen. Cisco.com operates Home & Home Office, Small & Medium Business, and Large Enterprise zones. Nortel limits its coverage to Small & Medium Business and Enterprise zones. Novell limits its audiencing strategy to a Small Business zone. No standards here either.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are no community marketing standards in the IT industry. Picking the wrong community marketing approach can also create additional work

This of course, brings me to the point. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are no community marketing standards in the IT industry. Picking the wrong community marketing approach can also create additional work. Of the options on the board, organizing your communities around Home & Home Office, Small & Medium business and Enterprise Business creates the least confusion. These categories are self-evident for most visitors and it’s unlikely that a visitor will pick the wrong category and end up wandering through the wilderness into another zone.

On the other hand, if operating separate small business and medium business zones is your cup of tea, telling visitors how you define these segments is critical to success. Sans that information, visitors will end up staring at your community list wondering if they are a bigger than a breadbasket or smaller than a kumquat. If they make the wrong decision, they get a fun-filled hour of pogo-sticking between these zones trying to ferret out which one serves their needs.

As for approaches, that’s a mixed bag as well. Based on our research, employee headcounts make the most sense. Here, the very loose rule of thumb seems to be that small businesses have less than 100 employees. Medium businesses, on the other hand, are a nightmare to define. Depending on the vendor, the high end for these companies can range from 1,000 to 10,000 employees. At 10,000 employees, of course, this definition begins to bleed into the enterprise business category—which is a whole ‘nuther Oprah I’m not going to touch.