Tech geek blogger find startups websites suck

Well this is according to Scobleizer (Tech geek blogger – maybe that says it all) about the websites of the startups presenting at DEMO 08 ($18,000 expensive launch show + expenses travel, lodging = burning money).

Website requirements for Scobleizer are:
– Clearly state the business, service provided or the problem it solves
– Attractive page
– Communicate to visitors
– Information
– Use video or multimedia
– Minimal number of words: keep it interesting
– No lame stock photo
He has updated his requirements in “How to be a stealth site” post.

Clearly state solution or service
It is obvious the website has to explain clearly what the purpose is about, using words and sentences 99% of the population understands – preferably in foreign countries too.
In many cases websites don’t even established companies.

Different audiences for websites

A website has to address the market the business is intended for:
– Advertising revenue: getting as many users and eyeballs as possible for selling advertising
– B2C: direct sales
– B2B: convince – build trust
Of course there are the websites with no business model yet.

Advertising revenue websites

They need to use video, flash, multimedia experience and gimmicks in order to have a cool, great looking and splashy website in order to stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Most of these websites have to address the younger part of the population, as the older are still mainly sitting in front of their TV set.

However many very popular website just look clean: Netlog (30mio users) facebook (over 100million users).
Even YouTube is not looking fancy, except for their video offering.

B2C websites

Although the audience is similar to the previous, the purpose is different.
These websites need to attract the potential retail buyer and present as with the minimum of clicks the goods he is interested in buying.
The goal is direct sales and make sure the buyer gets convinced of the best pricing or best service.
Thus no clutter, no additional widgets or video’s that will slow down the loading of the website. Not everybody in the world has a broadband connection.

Amazon and eBay are as market leaders probably good examples. Although eBay gets sometimes confusion on the search results page as there are offerings not completely matching the desired products.

B2B websites

Complex sales
These websites have a complete different set of requirements:
In most cases it is no direct sales, but part of the so-called “complex B2B sales process” that can be long.

State clearly the proposition
Obvious.
Still some of the market leaders aren’t so specific or state clearly of what they supply of solve: Cisco, Citrix.
This can be due to the too many products they provide and supply.
Still your CEO might not know what these 2 companies supply.

Inform
The website needs to inform the visitors in order to build trust and confidence of their experience or knowledge about the problems their solution address. Like Amazon Web Services.

Web 2.0 not yet
The decision influencers, decision makers and decision takes are increasingly older.
Most managers are above 35, most Directors are above 40 and CEO’s are above 50.
These people do have other occupations than to surf the Internet the whole day, thus their experience are limited. Web2.0 designs are still too new.
It is not because your website looks great Web 2.0 or very esthetical (Blinksale) that you will get the most customers.

Photo
It is said that having a picture of a face on your website will make the website page more human and people will stay and remember longer. Thus lame stock photos can work positively for your website.

Multimedia
Video and flash animations are not to be used on the main page as this can make loading much slower. Novell (The “04” tab).
Although most companies will have a broadband connection, as several people are on the Internet using the same connection, the high volume required will considerably slow down the loading of the page.
Moreover in many companies video websites like YouTube are being blocked by the system.

Java animations are not in favor neither, although they can work if they are small enough and thus don’t consume bandwidth.
Scrolling or appearing reference labels is a good example as in this way many references can be displayed without eating up too much space. However the logo’s displayed need to be clickable to another informative page.

Having background music on the website is asking for clicking the Back button as this disturbs the office environment and colleagues will immediately have remarks about the employee visiting music websites.

Multiple messages
In many cases a B2B company has multiple messages or multiple products.
This will become an overload of information for the home page.
In order to solve this, a series of a few clickable pictures with messages is a good solution as this puts the visitor in command. Oracle

World & language
In many cases a B2B website addresses a large part of the world, not all speaking the same language, there for the English words used need to be understood by many different people.
Even better is having a website for each language group.
More on this matter and other B2B international issues in: “Selling Online to Industrial Buyers Overseas” by Karen E. Klein.

Content
One of the main purposes of a B2B website is to be found on the Internet, which requires appearing up many different searches and preferably having a high Search Engine Results Page SERP.
This increases the amount of information and topics addressed on the website

Search
As the amount of information on a B2b website can become quite large, a sitemap and or a search can help to navigate the visitor.

Product information
People in B2B want detailed product information they can access without registration or any other hurdles.

White trend
As a general trend, having a website with a white background and lots of white space still seems to work. A trend started by Google.
A black background is for adult websites.

So does your (startup) website sucks to Scobleizer requirements?
Maybe it does, but as long as your value proposition is clear, and then there is no problem in reaching your market.
If your market can find you on the Internet: Alexa ranking.