Before starting this article, I’d like to share a quote.

“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.” – Charles Caleb Colton

A few weeks ago I was informed by a client that parts of their website were ‘copied’ by one of their competitors. Sure enough, it was. And it made me feel great! We had done it!  We helped Midwest Fire set the bar for web innovation, and others were finally trying to reach it.

The goal of Midwest Fire’s website was simple. Let a fire chief 2,000 miles away experience a Midwest Fire truck from the convenience of his office chair. Show viewers every angle, every nook and cranny, every feature that makes a Midwest Fire truck better than the rest. And that goal was reached when the new MidwestFire.com was launched in early 2009. The website had several features including: interactive truck viewers, a truck locator, virtual tours of the shop, an archive of their past and recent deliveries, and several others. It was a major upgrade from their old site, and it made Midwest Fire look like the king of all fire tanker manufacturers.

That said, a few weeks ago I was informed that Fouts Bros Fire Equipment had launched a new website. A public relations article was released on Dec. 14, 2009 to publicize the launch. The following excerpt was my favorite part.

Sales Manager, Travis Rakestraw indicated the importance of a comprehensive website in today’s economy. “With the decreases in our customer’s budgets it is necessary for Fouts Bros to create a low cost or no cost evaluation process; the new website allows current and future Fouts Bros customers to view in detail, and with a high level of clarity, our standard product line and all of our features, without leaving the fire department.”

I can only imagine what the creative meeting was like when Fouts Bros decided to create a new website. I think it’s fair to assume that MidwestFire.com was pulled up on a projector, everyone awed, and someone said, “I want it to be like that.”  End of meeting.

Fouts Bros has a great website, and this post isn’t meant to be a slam against them in any way. It’s meant to challenge the rest of you. Being leaders is about being innovative; integrate new ideas in new places. Midwest Fire stepped outside of the norm and invested in a quality website that showcases their products in a way that no other fire tanker manufacturer had. The competition realized the effectiveness of our plan, and followed in the same direction. If you’re interested in doing the same thing for your business, connect with us and see how we can help.

Be sure to check out MidwestFire.com and FoutsFire.com to see what I’m rambling about. I’ve posted a screenshot of Midwest Fire’s interactive truck viewer below, along with the Fouts Bros interactive viewer. And, like Charles Colton said, imitation really is flattering.

Midwest Fire

Fouts Bros Fire Equipment

Over the past few weeks, Intuit, the same company that makes Quickbooks, has been advertising the heck out of their ‘website builder’ software. And because I’ve had several past, current, and prospective clients ask and heckle about the prices associated with setting up a website, I’d like to offer a little insight to this Intuit product.

The “For as little as $5 / month” tag they advertise on the radio might as well be “As little for $5 a month.” That Starter Package will only provide you with 5 pages, and barely enough storage space to showcase a few high quality photos and PDF downloads. That also doesn’t include a domain name or any email addresses.

The Platinum Package for $50 per month won’t be enough. Yes, they do give you 10 gigabytes of storage and unlimited pages, but they don’t give any functionality outside of words on a page. Remember, the purpose of advertising is to impress people, not to just slap words on a page and hope they care or are interested enough to read it.

Intuit’s “professionally designed templates” are garbage. A website should be built around a brand’s image and appeal to it’s viewers. If the site looks like a cheap template, your business will look like a cheap template.

Their claims to ‘get you to show up in search engines’ are bogus. I’ve looked at several sites created with Intuit’s site builder, and not one of them utilizes the latest SEO strategies. If you think your new Intuit website will show up in Google, you’re in for a surprise.

And I almost forgot to mention – how trustworthy is a company that sells you a piece of software through Amazon.com that arrives with no software in it? (click here to see -> http://bit.ly/2DMWS5)  There is no disc, no program, just a website address printed on a sheet of paper directing you to Intuit’s website.

So, if you sell trinkets, don’t pretend to build websites. We’ve spent years devoting our attention to the web and everything surrounding it. You should spend years learning everything there is to know about trinkets, and hire a web expert when you need a website. You’ll be much happier with the end result.