“Tell the World We’re Here & We Do Stuff”

Your Web site can be the ultimate brochure for your enterprise and nothing more. Usually, brochure sites are composed of a set of static Web pages, each of which describes some different aspect of your organization. The material presented changes rarely, so it is fairly high-level, or generic, in nature. Visitors who read this content will get a reasonably good idea of what your enterprise is about.

• Brochure sites are brochures. They tell the Web world: “We’re here! This is US!” That’s about it. The only interactivity is usually provided by e-mail (“Contact Us”) links and by polls, if used. This type of site works well with enterprises where interaction is not needed and that which you offer visitors rarely changes. If your content changes frequently or you need greater interactivity between your enterprise and those who visit your site, the brochure site is probably not your best bet.
• You have no control. You can only change the content by providing new copy to your Webmaster. If you need to remove or add pages, the Webmaster has to not only add or retire the physical HTML pages, but also revise the Web links on each page.
• It’s expensive to change the site. Calendars, forms of any kind, comment sections—all must be designed and coded by a programmer.
• It will be harder and harder for visitors to find your site. The Web search engines send out non-invasive code elements to identify, classify, and catalog all sites on the World-Wide Web. After your site is cataloged, the search engines will come back every two weeks or so to re-catalog it based on the date the site content was modified. If the content on your site changes infrequently, the search engines push it further down the hit list of sites returned when a visitor conducts a search.