Whenever a big site launches a new version or, indeed, a whole new site, there's always lots of FIZZ around extolling the virtues of the new design / new capabilities / new customer features.  There's lots of talk about the increased visitor numbers / better conversion rates and the subsequent positive impact on the bottom line.

And, of course, to increase the impact of all this fizz companies roll out the big guns to present all this good news.  That means the CEOs are making lots of claims about the "top draw capabilities and compliance" of the site that they probably haven't fully substantiated. 

How would they do that ? 

How would they know how good or bad it was ?

Who would have told them all those good things ?

How would they have proved the claims ?

And if they are wrong who will be pilloried ?  Yes - the CEO.

Unfortunately such statements, when not exactly correct, at best raise unpleasant questions and at worst may generate unnecessary and time consuming litigation.

When building websites, some of the people involved with their production can lack the necessary understanding of the issues that can be created by a lack of adherence to standards and poor quality control.  Or they may feel there just isn't enough time allocated for the due diligence necessary.  And, to date, executives have not had the reporting facilities available to them to ensure they can substantiate claims they are asked to make about their Web presence and subsequently hold people to account over their claims about it's quality if they prove to be ill founded.

And if all this is being done by an outside agency then things are one step removed.  Whereas a CEO may have a good working relationship with their Head of Web / CIO and "trusts" their assurances that the Website is superb, how does this extend to the agency that the CIO chose ?  Even though there is a clear commercial divide between the two organisations people often accept the assurances of external agencies that they have delivered on their promises of compliance and quality.  They often do this for the simple reason that they have no way to prove or disprove their claims.

To eliminate any 'techno jargon', which web-types can inadvertently slip into, it would be good to have a simple means of establishing some clear facts about a website's quality. Here's a couple of examples of the information provided by Sitemorse to help with this.

A screen shot of the front page of a couple of websites. The problem areas are highlighted by red, dotted red and blue boxes with explanation boxes that display as you hover over the problem.

Toshiba's site has broken links to both it's Terms and Conditions and it's Privacy Policy on it's Home Page.

Click the image below to view as a Video

View a full sized version of the "Toshiba" image above.

Here's one with more issues.

View a full sized version of the "Lombok" image.

Here we see a Dashboard view covering numerous pages on the website

In the past we have talked to many web services people (internal and external) involved with the creation of Websites for many organisations and sadly, we have been treated to a barrage of abuse. We always suggest it is better 'not to shoot the messenger' and to look at the information we had to offer but very often to no avail.

I feel strongly that we can assist the CEO and other Board members, by providing an independent audit of their on-line operations, (reporting risks and any potential brand dilution) this would provided them with a view of how good or bad things really are.

For their web team it provides the exact details of any issues that are affecting quality, compliance and performance down to the line of code on the page that needs amending.  It would clearly show them the exact details of any failures, allowing speedy correction and offer a better on-line experience to site vistors. 

And that could start happening on DAY ONE of the use of Sitemorse.
Why would people not want to buy a service that costs less than an average of 1% of web their operating costs, yet can save 30% plus over any manual alternative ??

Sitemorse isn't a 'big' project solution, the day of take up (which requires no installation, setup or support) it will provide the exact details of issues that are effecting the site - that very day people would be able to improve the website, often with less than 45 minutes work.