For a long time, if you needed a website and didn’t know how to design and code, you would hire a web designer or developer, or an agency. Today we are talking about the possibilities of replacement of a human designer with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Just look at the success of Squarespace, Wix and ‘The Grid’- All the templates and customization available from these platforms it empowers people with no design and code ability to produce things that look good — or at least professional.
First and foremost, what I’m seeing more and more people use DIY self-publish websites rather than hiring a web designer or developer. Just look, this Google Trends graph comparing searches between website builder, designer and web developer. This graph means that:
We’re going from a world of customized solutions to standardized platforms in web/mobile design.
Let me ask you one question — What’s the best way to build stand out conference or workshop website? There still don’t seem to be canonical answers yet!
There is a great saying
“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally” — Robert M. Pirsig
But, businesses don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves. Outside our industry, no-one wants to build a website. They only want the benefit of a website!
Right now, specific markets are dissatisfied with the complexity of outsourcing website solutions with traditional experiences and dealing with being overwhelmed by different third party platforms that do not speak to each other. Hundreds of hours of staff time that could otherwise be spent on more strategic aspects are spent on administrative tasks, as users navigate multiple disparate platforms and rely on largely manual processes.
In addition, we’re now at a stage in which every industry are a bit overwhelmed by the number of different management, analytics, marketing tools out there. The year ahead will call for (and are already calling for!) more integrated platforms in order to create significant improvements in workflow with less complexity and overhead.
There is a clear need of functionalities that simplifies ‘website building experience for specific markets’ that eliminates a lot of manual steps in peoples and departments workflow, saves time that can be spent the time doing something more valuable, which mean more revenue for the business.
Why website builders will work for specific markets?
Website builders dramatically improve performance, simplifies the routine to build and manage web presence, have significant results in cost savings and conservation of staff time.
Did you think no customization is a disadvantage for website builders?
Website builders are created to build conventional websites — don’t think of convention is not a good thing.
Consider a conference website. Every conference website has some non-negotiable elements: Speaker list, Agenda, Ticketing, Benefits, Testimonials, location & contact info and others.
Several months ago, I analyzed 108 digital, tech conference websites and here is what we learned — around 90% of websites are completely conventional.
Do these things need to be reinvented every time businesses needs a conference website? No! These are conventional features - a website builder can do a great job of conventional things. Website builders need to allow people to edit content easily. They need to have simple forms and elements. They need to have integrations. A website builder will buy you 90% of the customization at 10% of the cost. 10% is unicorn features. The fact is, these unicorn features are often solutions for problems that are trivial or don’t exist.
