Ego. It’s the enemy of almost any marketing endeavor. You think you’re pretty awesome and you want to share that news with the world. Obviously, customers only need to understand an inkling of your vast awesomeness and they’ll throw their money at you.  So make your website as focused on you as possible: your awards, your process, your history, sit back and watch the dollars roll in.

Wrong. No one actually cares about you–they care about their problem and how it can be fixed. They don’t care how you won Indiana’s Most Innovative Whatever, or that you were named Rising Star Company of 2002. They care that you understand their market, understand their pain and have a way to fix it that won’t break the bank. Take a look at your web copy. How many times do you refer to yourself? How many times do you refer to your customer in some way? If the ratio is completely out of whack, you may be falling into the ego trap.

But ego doesn’t just crop up in your web copy–it happens in the web design, too. Is your site full of self-indulgent bells and whistles, like strange and arcane navigation, annoying auto-playing features or strangely named pages? If so, you’re being egotistical again. You’re choosing what you like and what works for you, not what makes sense for your customer.

Repeat after me: you are not your customer. But you need to think like them and understand their desires to market to them, and ultimately to effectively fulfill their needs.

Is your website an exercise in ego or a resource for your clients?

Need help? Contact Roundpeg, an Indianapolis web design company.