4M

Good product, terrible website

I found this site via my treehugger email newsletter. The blurb in my email said in part,”

… proof-of-concept solar module that uses holograms to concentrate light, possibly cutting the cost of solar modules by as much as 75 percent, making them competitive with electricity generated from fossil fuels. … could bring down costs from about $4 per watt to $1.50 for crystalline silicon panels.

OO! That sounds cool. So I went to the site hoping to follow that information scent: Solar panels, much cheaper. Instead I found an organization-centric, hideous site that must have been written with astrophysicists in mind as its target audience. A sample of the homepage copy:

new type of photovoltaic module that uses transparent holographic optical elements in its design. This innovative, patented holographic technology, collects and spectrally selects useful wavelengths

ummm… HUH??

Goofy cheap stock images at the bottom bring sinking queasy feelings to my tummy….
Nary a call to action on the site … the contact page is even less helpful. Blech. Too bad.

All right, Marisa, you say it’s so bad, what would you do to fix it?? Well, if I had $3K and a month or two, I would:

1. Dump all the existing copy and design. Start with the url and rebuild the entire site from scratch.

2. Segment the potential audience: investors/partners; press; potential end-users

3. Rewrite the copy to appeal to those audiences.

4. Offer a feedback mechanism, as simple as a mailsend form on the contact page. That way, interested parties could SAY something to them, like: “Wow! This is so cool. When’s it going to be available in my state?” Or “This technology seems flawed. Where are your statistics to back it up?” Or “I want to interview you for my story on how solar can be just as cost-effective as fossil fuels. Please answer the following three questions.” Or whatever.

5. Give the CEO a good talking-to for using a template instead of hiring an actual web designer. Ugh.

5. Add a blog. Obviously.

6. Oh. Just found this one. Come on … how unprofessional is it to have an @att.net email address??? Dude!! Seriously.

7. Take more pictures of the product. The ones there are great. Get more of them. Show it in action.

8. Spend a couple hundred bucks and buy a real logo, for god’s sake.

9. Redo that cheesy diagram, make it bigger. Use Flash if you have to, that’s one of its limited uses: demonstrate ideas or methods that people have a hard time visualizing.

10. Get a real tagline. “manufacturer of advanced holographic solar modules” is a bitter-tasting mouthful. How about something like: “Bringing solar into the 21st century - finally”. All right, I admit that’s cheesy. But hey, I still haven’t gotten that 3 grand yet. Brandon needs some new shoes. Cough it up and I’ll give you something better.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 11:39 am and is filed under Rants & Raves, Life on the internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.