Is your Company website Falling into Oblivion?

No, this has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise flick.

The word “oblivion” is often used as a synonym for nonexistence, but there’s actually a slight technical difference between the two.Nonexistence is total nothingness, or the absence of existence. Oblivion, on the other hand, is a state where something did exist, yet through time it has become unknown or forgotten.

In marketing, oblivion is worse than nonexistence. When your company’s website has become “unknown or forgotten” to the online public, you’d rather wish your website had never existed at all.

This checklist will tell you whether your site might be suffering from acute symptoms of oblivion:

Scarcity or over-abundance of information.
You see, people have become so picky when it comes to appreciating business websites. They would find it either lacking of useful content that it never catches their attention, or they would find it an overkill of unnecessary blabber. Be safe; stay in the middle.

Not mobile-friendly.
PC sales are on its fast descent, and laptops are next. Soon, everyone would be browsing just through their smartphones and tablets (and when experts say “soon”, they usually mean “next year”). If you’re not planning to put up a mobile version of your site, then it’s bound for cyber extinction.

Antisocialism.
Every website today has social media links. Even imdb.com, which went online in 1993 (yes, 1993) now has Facebook links. That movie site, one of the oldest in the world, was founded at a time when Mark Zuckerberg was still in grade school; so if your site was built in 2013 and still doesn’t have social media integration, shame on you.

Questionable email/phone number disclosures.
Let’s say you hate social media and your company prefers phone or email. Fine. The problem is, people don’t trust toll free numbers or email addresses such as “info@mybusiness.com”. If you want people to take their business to you, post an office number or at least an email address with a person’s name on it.

Poor search discovery chances.
Perhaps it’s high time for you to evaluate your SEO efforts and see if people notice that your business does have a website. There’s no point in making your site pretty if no one ever gets to stumble upon it. Appearing on the 4th page of a standard Google search takes away your right to wonder why it stinks.

Cheesy layouts.
Business people look at quality and content, and while a flashy site does make an impression, it’s not a top priority. It’s better to wow them with credible data than to let the fancies do the talking.

No freebies? Giving away free stuff doesn’t mean you’re bribing them.
Okay, maybe a little. But the point is, you’ve got to give them reasons to visit your site, stay there, and then come back tomorrow. A few sample products wouldn’t hurt, and while you’re at it, get their opinion. That’s two birds with one stone.