It’s a Dog-Eat-Dog Web

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When I was in Albany this past weekend, and my siblings and I wanted to adopt a dog as a gift for our mother. We searched Google for local animal shelters and/or humane societies, trying to find places that had a decent selection of dogs to choose from.

We thought we had found a humane society to go to, so we tried getting in touch with them to get a few initial questions answered. The phone number (which is prominently displayed on their website) went unanswered, and despite numerous attempts to reach them, we were never able to get through to someone.

So instead we decided to take a drive to the address we found listed – not on their website, but on the search results page. We piled into the car, eager to see some dogs and excited about seeing the look on our mother’s face when we brought a dog in the door.

Unfortunately, once we arrived at that address, it turned out to be not the animal shelter that we were looking for, but someone’s home.

Now, you would think that an animal shelter – whose sole purpose is to place animals in good homes – would make it easy to actually find them. But by not having accurate contact information on their website, the way they communicated was at odds with their mission.

So what are the lessons here that can be applied to creating good websites?

• Search results can only be as good as the information on your website
• An up-to-date website is essential to your communications strategy
• Contact information should always be available and, more importantly, accurate
• If you depend on people finding you, then make it as easy as possible for them to do so

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