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How Technology is Democratising the Web
October 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A colleague recently told me about his experiences putting together websites. Way back in 1996, a government department had no idea how much it should cost so they set aside a budget of $400,000(!!).
About five years later, a company made the decision that it was time to get online. They did some research and found a web designer who told the company that they could do the job for $40,000!
Fast forward to 2003 – the Internet had started to mature and become a viable revenue-generator for most ‘offline’ product and service businesses. A wide range of web design companies and specialist firms had sprung up in addition to clearing houses such as Elance and Guru.com.
Companies were paying for people who understood this new technology. It’s much like the early days of automotive technology, when anyone who could afford a car would also have their own mechanic to take care of the then impenetrable technologies behind their car.
We have been seeing an increasing trend towards a democratisation of web technology over the last few years, however – and midrange web design firms are being forced into a lower price range (or out of business altogether). It is becoming simpler to design and manage websites with every passing year.
The higher end of highly skilled web designers (the ones who companies will pay for) are starting to shift towards analytical and marketing services rather than technical ones.
New technology is democratising the web in these areas:
Web Design:
There are now a lot of choices for software which anyone can use to build a relatively good looking website in an hour or less. There are also a lot of user-friendly content management systems which let users design a website without ever seeing any code. While these programs usually don’t have a lot of advanced features, they work fine for any simpler sort of website.
Analytics:
Not long ago, it took a very skilled specialist to give you any statistics other than page views and hits which you could use. Now, however, there are plenty of cheap or free tools for web analytics which can give users any information they’ll ever need.
Website Conversion Optimisation:
Landing page content analysis has also progressed greatly. Testing alternate landing pages is the heart of conversion optimisation; it used to take specialised software to track visitor behaviour.
As a provider of this type of consulting service myself, my impression is that many companies feel they are paying more for the technical component of the service as much as the marketing component (i.e. results).
Testing functionality is in the process of becoming freely available via new services. (While they don’t provide particularly advanced functionality, they’re adequate for most uses and are certainly easy to use).
Providers of conversion optimisation services are thus going to have to ensure they add sufficient value in terms of marketing smarts as the technical side becomes more accessible and transparent.
Especially for those on the lower end, analytical and marketing skills are eclipsing technical ones as the services which are the most marketable to their clientele.
There will always be a place for highly competent technical people, but I expect to see more mid to low-level tasks done inhouse or outsourced offshore.
The real growth in demand will be for people who can show companies how to profit from the web. Many companies can often tap into greater leverage opportunities by understanding and optimising their online marketing rather than investing in ‘capital works’ projects.
Author: Mr David B. Ascot shares sales lead generation methods that work so your company can boom through online lead generation.
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