by Andrew Starling
One of the few things I like about spam mail is that it's so obvious. On the very first line there are usually block capitals and dollar symbols, letting me know that this is junk and I can trash it immediately. As the dotcom industry struggles to make money, I'm noticing the same negative signals cropping up on an increasing number of Web sites too. "Ignore me. I'm junk."
January 24, 2001
Most professional Web sites exist to make money. A few lucky ones can make it indirectly by raising a company's profile and don't need to turn a profit on the site itself. Others are there to educate and inform without money as a motive - for example the sites I recently browsed chronicling the life of William Shakespeare.
But for most of us, profit is the driving force. And in these days of reduced ad rates, low Internet investment and online consumer apathy, it's a driving force that's hard to satisfy. That's why many sites are increasing their level of commercialisation. They're cramming more adverts on to their pages and heavily pushing their affiliate programs. The problem is that at some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Their visitors begin to say, "That's too much, I'm off elsewhere."
Nonsense
I can think of more than one search engine that's gone in this direction. Their pages were once uncluttered. Now they're full of affiliate links. I run a search for Mars Pathfinder and I get the message "Find Mars Pathfinder and millions of other cool items at eBay!" Hey, cool! I didn't even know it had come back to Earth, much less that I could bid for it.
Nonsense, isn't it? Kind of fun nonsense though, because there's lots of other interesting stuff I can type into the search field, like enriched plutonium or spiritual redemption.
"Buy Supreme Court Judges and more at Amazon.com." But the problem is that this nonsense detracts from the image of the search site. It becomes unintentionally amusing, and for a commercial enterprise, that's a dangerous way to be perceived.
Portals play the affiliate game too. Up to half the space on a portal front page may be taken up by affiliates and adverts. Most visitors will ignore them after a couple of visits.
From then on, they become a constant reminder that the aims of the portal and the aims of the visitor are not the same.
It's all a matter of degree. Most Web users are aware that advertising and affiliate programs pay the rent. In most cases they accept a touch of commercialism with good grace. As they become increasingly familiar with the Web, they attempt to ignore banner ads, which then become subliminal and therefore work in a different way. It's when commercialism becomes intrusive that it spoils the party - when it becomes commercial overkill.
Extremes
For extreme examples we only have to look at the webmaster services sector - stuff like search engine promotion, banner exchanges and email/newsletter distribution services. There's barely any money to be made in this sector and heavy commercialism is rife. Many sites offering these services appear to think their webmaster visitors are fundamentally dumb and highly susceptible to garish hype. Take a look at junk email database services and the extreme is taken about as far as it can go.
Even if this approach works, the end result is a client-base of dumb customers. The better webmasters are passing over these sites and looking for the ones that give full information and explain the capabilities of the company in a calm, measured manner. Or possibly they're ignoring the sector altogether.
Which brings us on to a further disadvantage of commercial overkill - bad associations. Heavily hyped sites full of adverts and affiliations are often on the periphery of the Web's core. They include get-rich-quick schemes plus other charlatans, and pornography. Those are the mental associations a visitor may make. The over-commercialised site may also give the impression that the company is in poor financial shape and has to make money in the short term however it can, because the long term doesn't look too rosy. Again, not a good association.
Global Reach
Finally, there's the issue of globalisation of the Web. International TV and billboard advertisers have known for a long time that adverts have to be tailored to the culture of their intended audience. In general, Americans are tolerant of hard-sell ads, but in Europe and elsewhere a soft-sell is likely to be more effective. So although British TV, for example, is stuffed full of American programs, it rarely ever shows American ads. They simply don't work in Europe.
The Web was originally dominated by the US, and has taken on some American cultural values. But now there are more Internet users outside the US than inside, and the latest prediction is that by 2003 less than one third of Internet users will be American. In the past, hard-sell sites could at least say they were suitable for the majority audience. Not any more.
Commercial overkill reduces the breadth of your audience, the quality of your audience, and the respect they hold for your site. If none of these things matter to you, please go right ahead and overdo it. Your more discerning visitors will thank you, because they'll be able to tell straight away that they've come to the wrong place.
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