Ok.  So you’re ready for a website.

You’ve run though your choices and eliminated the flawed possibilities.

1) Do-it-yourself?  The Web-equivalent of Amateur Poetry Recitation at the Dabbler’s Cafe.  Ok.  Scratch that one.

2) Hire a Full Time Internet Know-it-all?  No.  You just want a website, not a funky live-in brother-in-law who eats you out of house and home for the rest of your life.

3) Hook yourself up to yet another Intravenous Monthly Money drain?  X-Bucks a month from now until for ever from you to McWebsiteDaddy.  AKA: You’re not a Face.  You’re not a Name.  You’re just one of McBillions of McCreditCardNumbers McServed and don’t you dare try to call us and talk to a real person because you think you’re so McSpecial or something.

4) Website Templates.  Yes, yes, yes!  Plastic Posers wearing someone else’s warm, sweaty gym shoes.  Let’s just run next door and borrow our neighbor’s toothbrush.

In the end, the most effective conclusion, of course…Contract a Pro.  Someone you can get to know.

Smart move.

Now’s where the rubber meets the road.  Putting it all together to make that all important impression…that connection with your clientele.  This…is the fun part.

Ok.

You’ve got a logo.

You figure, a couple of pages.

A Menu.

Some Pics.

Maybe a Header.

And Fifteen Football Fields of TEXT.

Wham! There you have it.  Smack dab in the middle of cyberspace, sitting on the screen of the most fantastic, personalized, individually capable device ever conceived of by Man you have a perfectly good…Newspaper Ad.

Nice.  Hey.  Cutting edge, bro.  You’re really wowing them.

Talk about untapped potential.

Talk about using the Rosetta Stone as an abstract, decorative Wall Hanging.

Talk about using a Laser Beam as a Whiteboard pointer.

I mean…you can’t even wrap fish in it.

It’s like reading a one paragraph description of a Circus rather than actually going to see it in person.  That’s what your utilization of the technology that is at your disposal is.

Ok.  That’s a bit overboard.  To be honest, it’s not really a Newspaper ad.  I mean, those are mostly in black and white and on pulpy paper and buried in acres of surrounding articles, popping up somewhere around Page 18, Section C between the Legal Notices and the answers to last week’s Sudoku puzzle. Truth be told, it’s bolder than that.  It’s featured, full screen.  It’s got some good color happening.  It’s not unlike being Glossy, even.

Yes.  It’s actually a Magazine Ad or, maybe, if you zoom in until your nose hits the screen, a very small Billboard.

No, no, no, you say.  It’s much more informative than a Magazine Ad or a Billboard.  I mean, look at all those pages of TEXT.  Why, I’d say I’ve used the entire alphabet at least 150 times over.  Why, it’s chocked full of typographical details about our history and our specialty and written testimonials and a bazillion bullet points about our services and products and partners and so forth.

Clearly, it’s a Brochure.

Oo-la-la!  Un Brochure, monsieur! Hunh-hunh-hunh-hunh! C’est tres jolie, n’est-ce pas?  C’est tres chic, aussi!

This is great.  Maybe your clientele can print it out themselves and crease it into a tri-fold and slip it under the front door of their own place of business, then verbally scoff at it as they pick it up and drop it in the Circular File with the rest of the Junk Mail.

But, what gives?  “What’s wrong with a Brochure,” you say.  It’s a time-tested means of extending awareness of your product, service, organization, or what have you, reaching out to lots of people without necessarily meeting them in person.  Folks you can’t reach on your own.

Let’s see if we can draw a parallel.

Say you’re dining at an exclusive restaurant.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a prospective client appears, their wardrobe, their brief case, their watch, glasses, posture, and demeanor say, “I’m the client of your dreams.  I’ve got big bucks, and I need to spend them on the kind of thing you do.”

Quickly, before they can see you, you rip the tablecloth out from under the setting in front of you and throw it over your head!  Good thinking!

Then, you reach into your breast-pocket and pull out one of your ready Brochures!  With your arm sticking out from under the tablecloth over your head, you frantically wave your brochure at about eye level, smacking your prospective client in the face several times.  They snatch the missive from your hands, mutter something you can’t quite make out, and, then, they disappear somewhere, you guess, your message having been delivered.

But, of course, you do not know because you had a tablecloth over your head.

Mama…take the tablecloth off from over your head.

It’s the web, baby.

It’s like your own INTERACTIVE CABLE CHANNEL.  At the very least, your own TELEVISION COMMERCIAL, not even limited to 30 or 60 Seconds.

Ya gotta quit thinkin’ in TEXT.

TEXT is just odd, impersonal Chicken Scratch.

TEXT is why the World’s Worst Math problems are WORD PROBLEMS.

TEXT is WORK.

TEXT is THEFT of your Customer’s Valuable Time.

TEXT is like OBLIGATORY BUREAUCRACY.

TEXT is like a 15,000 PAGE CONGRESSIONAL BILL THAT NOBODY READS!

TEXT is like TAX CODES.

SILLY WEBBIT…TEXT IS FOR GOOGLEBOTS!

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