During my time working for a corporation in Amarillo, I would come across the different sites for some of our clients. These clients ranged in size from small to humongous and only in some cases the quality of their online presence would match their size. I would be mostly surprised by those clients that were doing a lot of business with said company but once you would visit their website, you would not believe they were a million dollar company even if you could see their accounting books.

I have seen several cases where a "client" spends a large amount of money to conduct their daily operations. In some cases, an online presence is not essential for their industry and the reason behind their website is mostly because their competitor has a one and so they need one as well. Situation like these end up with sites that are not successful from the any possible point of view (business, accessibility, designing, etc.)

The reason for failure can be one of many but one that I have seen over and over again, is the lack of understanding for what can be accomplished online — when the proper resources are allocated to the project. This process can snowball very easily as one could start asking "why are the resources not being allocated? " and the answer to this question can lead into a deep discussion and one that I rather not entertain in this space.

What prompted this post? Recently, I came across a couple of sites for companies that are spending a lot of money to conduct their daily operations but have a very poor website. One of these sites is completely unusable unless you were browsing with Internet Explorer. Again, a discussion can be long and many points could be raised about their projects, but I would like to think that just having a website these days is not a business advantage. As society has become more and more connected, a negative online experience may certainly work against your business goals and objectives.