When advertising agencies mistake themselves for web designers the outcome for you, the client, is often both costly and ineffective.

It’s easy to assume website development and advertising are interchangeable industries. However, the two industries couldn’t possibly be more different. They are, in fact, paradoxically opposed. Allowing your advertising agency to control the development of your website can, therefore, be detrimental to your business.

Be it a billboard, a tv campaign, or the side of a bus, all advertising hinges purely on it’s ability to impress a message onto users, against their own free will. To do this they must be very effective at capturing the user’s attention long enough to deliver their call-to-action, or create awareness.

Conversely, a website hinges purely on its ability to respond to users already compelled to action. Be it response to a search engine query, advertisement, news article, etc, the website user is visiting entirely of their free will and they can choose to exit entirely of their own free will. 

Below, we've compiled a list of cardinal web design sins we witness committed by advertising agencies almost daily.

Agency Sin 1:

Disregarding Search Engines.

Search Engines Optimisation is a highly technical science. Art directors are excellent creative thinkers and usually excellent designers, but they are rarely technically-minded. In fact most of them can't even use a PC. Expecting an art director to possess even rudimentary knowlegde of search engine optimisation, is optimistic at best.

This is a serious problem because Search Engines should typically deliver over 80% of your traffic. Paying for a website that disregards search engines is like paying for outdoor advertising on the bottom of the ocean. Maybe its because agencies can then derive profit designing ads directing people to the website, or maybe its simply from sheer incompetence but this sin is the most prolific within the advertising industry, your local vet probably has a more visible website. To illustrate the level of ignorance exhibited by advertising agencies in the SEO field, just type Advertising Agency Brisbane  into Google. Its highly alarming to note that our page  actually appears on page 1 of Google's results - ahead of the main homepages of almost every agency in Brisbane, and we don't even work in advertising!

That billboard in the San Andreas Trench is looking more attractive by the minute.

Agency Sin 2:

Sacrificing functionality for form.

Next time you're viewing an agency-designed website, try using your back arrow to reach the previous page (the most frequently used component of the web browser), 9 times out of 10 agencies will disregard this functionality altogether in their designs, dumping you straight back to Google. Designing a site with no back or forward functions is like designing a new car with no steering system. Deep linking, the very reason the web was invented (hence the word: 'WEB') is also impossible in this style of 'website' - if a user wanted to return to a page / product later or forward it to a friend, you can forget it. Likewise, copying and pasting the text off a page, is also impossible. Other examples of this sin are designing impractical layouts with inadequate space provided for content; or navigation systems that don't clearly communicate purpose (this is known as 'mystery meat' - another agency favorite). But the very finest example of Form before Function: designing a highly graphical layout that allows no possibility to add future pages!

Forget the steering - You've just been sold a new car with nowhere to refill the gas-tank... Its not going anywhere, but my, what a beautiful paint-job it has.

Agency Sin 3:

Disrespecting Users.

Unlike an advertisement, which aims to disrupt a user to gain attention, the website needs to work with the user, not against them.

Music is one of the worst ways to disrespect users and make them leave a website: Uses are in either one of two states while viewing a website: Listening to their own music, or not listening to their own music. Either way, the user is choosing their desired state. Over-riding the user's wishes by inflicting music onto them will, at the very least, disrupt the user. Unless there's an actual reason for having music (eg: its a musician's website) its better to concentrate on providing the user with the information they actually want - not subjecting them to repeatitive muzak.

Launching the website in it's own window, is another major no-no that is ignored all too often. This is the online equivilent of sending hired goons to a customer's house and dragging them into your business.

Making users download Quicktime or Mediaplayer to watch movies is also pretty rude. While Microsoft and Apple wage format warfare on each other, your poor users are caught in the cross-fire, constantly being pestered that: A new version of Quicktime is now available - you must get it now or we'll kidnap your children...
or: Do you want to make Media Player your default player and inherit all your earthly belongings when you die?...
To which most users answer: No... I just want to watch the freaking video on the site... Don't let your site become another statistic in the format war, just use Adobe Flash Video, its the fastest, best quality, least buggy, most non-invasive and most heavily supported format.

Respect the user and the user will thank you.

Agency Sin 4:

Employing animation for no reason.

This is the direct result of agencies, again, misunderstanding the fundimental purpose of websites, and again, confusing the media for a television commercial.

Website users are goal-orientated: they scan pages for the information they seek. Usability tests have concluded users subconsciously filter animated content out of this scanning process. I was recently investigating a new off-the-plan high-rise apartment, I wanted to jump online, print out the floor plans, email a link showing the finishes to my wife, and maybe even see what the view was like from level 30... the last thing I wanted was to be attacked by a full-screen popup running a 10 minute animated sequence showing the building morphing out of liquid metal before transforming into a computer-generated 'virtual sales consultant'. It didn't impress me - I saw Terminator 2 when I was 12. The high-rise had already impressed me, thats why I visited the website. All I wanted was some simple information, what I got was a James Cameron sci-fi starring a 'pre-recorded sales consultant'.

When ad agencies figure out what the browser's back arrow is actually for, then perhaps we can think about pulling JC out of retirement to sell real estate.... baby steps.

The last word

This is not to say agencies and website developers can’t or shouldn’t work in parallel, to the contrary. Refreshweb works along side many excellent (at producing ads) agencies. Provided Refreshweb doesn't start shooting car commercials and agencies don't start trying to design websites, we all get on just peachy and our mutual clients receive an excellent service across-the-board. But there's also no shortage of ad men out there touting their 'new media' departments abilities - before you buy in - just spend 10 minutes on their website (assuming you can find it, given it probably isn't on Google) it will quickly become clear that granting an agency creative control of web development typically produces a very, very, poor outcome for the client.

If you need a website, source and engage with a company who specializes in developing websites. Discuss your business needs with them directly and have them report directly to your business.