04 Jul A quiet site that does a powerful job
Beth and I are always talking about the need to provide variety on your website to really engage your readers. Much as I hate to say it, cereal companies tend to do a good job of engaging kids through games, sound, video and other media that really grabs their attention.
One industry we can all learn from is the financial services industry. Perhaps it’s because they’re often viewed as the most “boring” industry – they need interactive websites that will not only engage, but also inform the visitor. I don’t know exactly what a surety bond is, but when I was sent the SuretyBonds.com site by an online marketer I realized this was a perfect example for us to review here.
Weigh in…tell me what you do and don’t like about the site. Here are my two cents: First of all, this page clearly marks itself as an education center. I like how the site owner wasn’t afraid to use a good portion of the page to indicate that. I also really like there’s a human picture on the page…goes toward someone actually being behind the information rather than a boring wikipedia type approach.
You can’t tell from the screen shot, but if you go to the actual site you see a variety of multimedia including a podcast of the Q&A series with experts, a guide that can be downloaded and information that can be read dire
ctly on the site. The main page itself includes the 5W’s really well – who needs a surety bond, what they are, when you should buy them, where you can buy them and why you should buy them. In no nonsense copy too, I might add.
This site will certainly not win any awards and it doesn’t have the flash of an ad agency imprint. But I have to say that function has become the form in this case – which to me is the best kind of site of all.