The Democratisation of Web Technology
I was talking the other day to a colleague about website building. He told me that in the mid-90s, a government agency allotted a budget of $400,000 for websites, not knowing what it would cost.
A few years later, a company decided that they needed to establish an online presence. They found a web designer, who told them that for a mere $40,000, their site could be built.
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.
What these companies were paying for was expertise; they didn’t understand the technology. In a way it’s like when cars were a new technology and those who could afford to have one would often keep a mechanic on retainer as well to deal with this new and (then) arcane technology.
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 top 20% of highly technically skilled web designers are beginning to make a transition towards marketing and analytical skill rather than emphasising solely technical expertise.
Emerging technologies that are democratising the web
Site Design:
There are tools that allow an absolute novice to put together a reasonable looking webpage in under an hour. There are also countless other platforms connected to simple content management systems that allow you to design your own site without touching any code. These tend to lack advanced functionality, but if it’s a simple brochure site you want they can certainly do the job.
Web 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.
Optimising the Site:
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 person who offers these services as a consultant, I see a lot of companies perceiving that they are paying for the technical aspects of the task, not the marketing ones (the part which brings them 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.
At the lower end of the web business spectrum, technical knowledge is becoming much less important than are the analytical and marketing skills necessary to increase return on investment.
While there will always be a place for those who are highly skilled in web technologies, I expect to see a growing number of simpler technical duties being offshored.
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.
About the author: Mr David B. Ascot reports sales lead generation strategies that get results so your business can expand through online lead generation.
Tags: Internet Marketing and SEO, Internet Marketing Consultants, Online Lead Generation, Sales Lead Generation
