3 reasons this common website advice is all wrong

Entrepreneurs who follow this web development advice will get cookie-cutter websites without personality.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Recently a client showed me an article about websites, written by a well-known marketing coach. The article’s premise seemed reasonable. Look at these 10 terrific websites, he said, and use them as models.

Any time you’re encouraged to model your marketing on someone else’s, question it. This marketing coach chose some excellent websites to use as guides. But they wouldn’t be useful for my client. Here’s why.

(1) The websites were all from large-ish companies that sold SaaS products.

Their clients bring different problems, concerns, and backstories to a purchase, ompared to a coach, consultant, fitness trainer, or even a lawyer or accountant.

SaaS stands for “Software as a service.” You might think, “Big deal. Service is service, right?”

Wrong.

Think about the way you choose an email service versus the way you hire a business coach. For the email service, you want reliability and ease of use. You ask questions about uptime. You want a help desk that responds quickly.

When you hire a business coach, you’ve got more concerns about the interaction. Will the coach respect where…