Every day we’re searching for potential web clients. We scour the Internet for parks, B&B’s, small motor lodges, and the like. And what we’re looking for is simple……websites that are a total bomb. Great business, poor web presence.
I can tell you this. It sometimes gets painful (IBS kind of painful). And when we come across a good site it’s usually built by one of a handful of design groups that we have great respect for. When we find that rare good site we pass on by, no contacts no inquiries. Why? They’ve already got an effective web presence. We’re looking for the sites your children would be ashamed of……..
Cold calling, e-mails, and snail mail…… We try every way possible to contact businesses that look to be good businesses, but that have bad web presence. Often by the end of the day we’re a little depressed here. There are so many bad websites! The other year one of our clients, Bret Blevins, said the following….
I’ve gotten so used to looking at bad websites that I didn’t know what to expect when you worked on mine! This is a great website!
Today I’m doing a little tongue and cheek fun here at RLC Design. I’m sharing the letter I’d like to send to businesses that need our help, but the letter that we’d never send!
We’re Contacting You Today Because Your Website Sucks
This is a screen capture from my 21 inch screen. This is full size, we didn’t shrink it. Unreadable on my big monitor, and on my smart phone it actually made me cry.
Dear Potential Customer
My name is Rich Charpentier. I’m contacting you today because I believe that my business, RLC Design Services, can help improve your web presence. We’re contacting you specifically after researching your current online presence thoroughly. And honestly, it’s a nightmare! I’m surprised your customer base has put up with it for so long. We’ve compiled a short list of issues that we could help you address below.
- Nowhere on your site is your business address, phone number, or way to contact you. Your phone isn’t ringing off the hook for a reason.
- More than 50% of the links on your website go to error pages.
- Your rate sheet is dated for the 2004 travel season. In case you were unaware, it’s 2015.
- The last images of your park are dated from 2004…..
- The 8 Bit cowboy music on your site has got to go.
- Bouncing animated GIFs went out in 1998.
- Your copyright date on your site is from 2002. It’s 2015 now.
- The font on your website is completely unreadable on a 27 inch screen.
- Your website is not only mobile unfriendly, it’s mobile hostile. It crashed my iPhone and Android.
- You’ve taken copyrighted photos off of someone’s better website. There’s a word for that….illegal.
- There’s no content on your website.
- I had to work really hard to find you on Google Page 7, and you’re the only RV Park in your town! You really need our help.
- The photos on your site are clearly from Disney, not from your park.
- Your teal background with green fonts forced a premature visit to my optician to make sure I hadn’t gone RGB Color Blind.
Not only can we help update your current web presence, we can also help you get found easier. Additionally, we happily train your staff on how to manage your website going forward, ensuring that your information is up to date.
Please feel free to call or e-mail us (unless you don’t have a phone or Internet and point number one occurred for that reason), and we can discuss how RLC Design can help you today.
Serious about good web design
Ah yes, the letter was totally tongue and cheek. But how many readers have experienced any of the issues we listed above? You know you’ve seen it. And you’ve probably seen worse. When you see those bad sites, you most likely do what I do. I move on to the next site in my Google Search and I wish that I could un-see the travesty that I stumbled across. Unfortunately for me, I have to look at the site completely so I know what issues are there and how I can help the business.
RLC Design is very serious about helping our customers. We want to get them found, we want their site to be easy for their potential customers, and we want to help increase their bottom line. With the advances in mobile technology there’s a good bit to keep up with, and we cut through all of the hype and identify what these business owners really need. And what they need has nothing to do with animated GIFs!
Is it time to stop offending your customers with an outdated and poorly laid out site? Get in touch with us (we have a Contact form on our site), and we’ll talk about everything you’ve missed out on in the last 2 decades!
This site has animated GIFs, multi colored fonts, and feels like a Crayola Crayon set was used to cobble it together. This is not one of our designs. And yes, it’s a real website!