They’re probably right.

On the other hand, good (and even great) IT industry Websites have something to teach everyone.

They market and sell a complex range of products and software – plus the services that make them work. HP.com, for example, has over 10,000 SKUs. A small tech site can have upwards of 10,000 pages under management.

They reach and woo huge, diverse and demanding audiences.  Consumers who are shopping. CIO’s who are bonding. Project managers who are planning. Tech heads who are developing. Investors and journalists who influence the market’s pace. These sites will easily serve over 14 million visitors a month. When you have that many people knocking on your door, there’s not much time to make mistakes.

And that’s just for starters. Once the deal is done, tech sites must deliver mountains of product support information to cranky users 24/7. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, entitled extranets maintain relationships with huge global customers, and distributors and partners selling the company’s wares.

All things considered, tech sites have more moving parts and business strategies than anyone else on the Web. Amazon.com might have “fall off a log” e-commerce, but it doesn’t have to fix my egg cooker when the cord falls out.  My banking site does a great job of displaying my accounts in real time and letting me pay the bills, but it doesn’t have to deliver a gazillion software downloads a day, or contend with millions of developers who are fiddling with the product.

That’s why we focus on technology sites — and why you should too.

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.

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.