Golden Web Review

RubinBrown

URL: www.rubinbrown.com

Substance	7
Team competence & commitment	5
Differentiation	7
Reasons to return	4
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	23
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	7
Personalization & personality	7
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	22
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	5
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	50

NOTE: This site has undergone a major revision since our review.

Comments:

Time to review another Top 100 firm site! A Top 50, in fact. RubinBrown rebranded (formerly known as RBG) and launched this "new" site about a year ago in conjunctin with the rebranding.

We are immediately struck with the unique color scheme. It's about as different as it could be from the red/white/black of the former brand. Though the brown makes sense given the firm's name, and it does stand apart from the rest, the brown/blue/white just seems a little odd for this dynamic firm.

We actually don't have consensus here at Golden Marketing about the site's colorscheme. Two detest the colors and one doesn't mind them so much.

Moving past the colors, but still on the homepage, a couple other things catch our attention. First, the use of the logo in their flash-based scenes is creative, but seems to run a little fast. Maybe it's the little sliding dash-y thing that's going too fast. Hard to tell. But the bottom line is that it distracts from our ability to read what's on the homepage!

Secondly, the text blurb (white on blue) to the right of the flashy thing contains same-'ol, same-ol' text that results in poor use of prime homepage real estate. The text reads...

Since 1952, our specialized services have been making a unique and lasting mark on the financial future of clients in a variety of industries. Our specialized knowledge and our commitment to a philosophy of unmatched client service is how we provide superior value to our clients. And it’s how RubinBrown has become one of the most valued and respected names in our profession.

That's 2 "specializeds," a "commitment," a "philosophy," and an "unmatched." None of this is substantiated in the paragraph, anyway, so how about just cutting all the middle stuff out to simply state something more easily digestable, and hopefully more memorable:

Since 1952, RubinBrown remains one of the most valued and respected names in our profession.

Oh no! The second most prominent position, the welcome message, is a big repeat of the above blurb with another "value," another "superior," another "client service," two more uses of "commitment," and another reference to 50 years. Gads!

After fighting off a strong desire to nap, we dug in to the site.

Once into the site, we notice that the layout is simple and clean. We like the way the horizontal brown stripe is aligned with images on industry sub-page layouts and bio layouts. Most importantly, the site is pretty easy and intuitive to navigate, especially with the consistent submenu under the focal image on the service and industry pages.

The only seemingly odd thing we noticed is that the "home" button is not just a link to home, but is also a stealth drop down menu containing the about us, bio, association, and location links.

Services and industries pages are well done. Each section references relevant services, resources, publications and contact person. With the exception of a few practice areas that really stand out, content is fairly typical. We'll talk about the best ones below.

The 'typical' ones consist mostly of bullet points. Some of the best pages are Hospitality which has a really good Q&A and Homebuilders that, while it has bullet lists for services, offers link to product samples for many items (excellent!).

On these more detailed sections, there is little doubt as to the firm's expertise. The lighter sections, by comparison, cause one to wonder if there is actually less depth in those areas or just less interest on the part of practioners the development of their website. If we had to hazard a guess...

Some other specifics we noted:

• Internal audit overview page is a single giant hunk of text...remember to hard return every couple sentences just to make your web text easier to read!
• Tax consulting page has a sidebar item that references 2002 taxable wage base
• Service link to Abacus opens an affiliate site that is far below RubinBrown's site in quality...really seems out of place
• Service link to RBG staffing, by comparison, is fantastic and brings nice continuity
• Healthcare services list page has links that open a duplicative page. The second page has good descriptors...we'd eliminate the first link page and open right to the second one.

When it comes to content, it would be nice to see what actually sets the firm apart from their competition. Another addition to think about would be to feature client testimonials or representative client lists (with permission, of course).

More on content...the writing needs help.

On the Law "overview" page, there are just two paragraphs. In the first paragraph, "specialized" appears twice followed by "specialist." Then "specialize" is in the second paragraph. The irony is that the word "specialize" (and variations thereof) is one that lawyers are not allowed to use in their marketing so I bet it really jumps out at them.

On the Mortgage Bankers overview page, there are also two paragraphs. The first paragraph uses, in this order: "extensive," "experience," and "expertise." Then the second paragraph uses: "experience," "expertise," "extensive," and "specialize." The sidebar blurb also uses "extensive."

Please! Find some alternate words! For ideas, see Michelle Golden's blog post Please Don't Put This On Your Website.

The majority of the publication pages do provide links to the publications they reference, but a few listed only of the title requiring readers to contact the firm to obtain a copy of the article. Why the inconsistency?

Also, readers should always be warned when links launch a download, even a PDF. Or when they go to another site. We found the Service link to RubinBrown Advisors to be slow to open (even w/high speed) and we were surprised it took us to "another site" without a pre-click heads' up.

Some section pages list people who serve in specialty areas, but the people's names are not linked to bios! We think this is a big mistake. Bios seem only to be accessible from the About menu, and only for partners.

We also find it odd that while there is a dedicated “contact us” link for each service and industry, it only provides e-mail addresses for the persons listed. NO PHONE NUMBERS! It appears they would rather hear from you via e-mail than a personal phone call. Is that actually the intent?

News and publication content seems to be added fairly regularly. The news page contains nice photos--the only place to actually see some of the faces of the firm (besides partners).

Overall, this site has some good information and resources. The career section has a lot of basic info but isn't as "catchy" as it used to be.

Goodman & Company

URL: www.goodmanco.com

Substance	7
Team competence & commitment	6
Differentiation	4
Reasons to return	8
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	25
Navigation & usability	9
Attractiveness	8
Personalization & personality	8
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	25
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	9
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	59

Comments:

The Goodman Co. homepage is traditional. It's actually been changed since we took our "snapshot" above. Now the page requires scrolling to see its entirety. Not optimal for a homepage. The previous design, above, was more artistic, too. It appears the change was made to allow for a full listing of the firm's services and industries which is nice to have at the ready, but a redesign of the page would be best to more artfully accomodate the links.

It's nice to see client and employee log-in areas. A sitemap would be very helpful, though, as the site is fairly large and seems complex.

The photos depicting each office location are appealing but they flash by too quickly causing mild vertigo! The prominent “How may we serve you?” stands out and suggests a client-focused firm. A further look doesn't show this message is conveyed heavily throughout the site, though.

It's a plus that prominent news, events, and client resources are on the homepage. Makes it easy for visitors to see why they would want to come back again, draws attention to current activities to help promote them, and search engines definitely favor sites that change often.

Although the overall design is somewhat attractive, the black background with blue and white text is very tiring on the eyes. Experience shows us that elderly readers (and those of us who stare at screens, papers and books all day) really have trouble with that contrast – a large part of the reason that the trend in web has reverted to white backgrounds. We'd recommend reworking the color scheme to make it more pleasant for the site's readers. The HR Division pages have a different look and feel–they're own brand–which is much easier on the reader's eyes.

Inside the site, the photos on each page are beautiful, but don’t always relate to the page content. It's best when images are relevant to the content. Some of the images are rather cliché such as the handshake and the hands typing at the keyboard.

Those interested can download firm brochures. We're sure they're proud of them, but these graphic intensive files are not exactly web-friendly. Again, the white writing with black background is hard on the eyes, especially online. Most importantly, be sure to warn that the link is to a graphic intensive PDF file. Never a pleasant surprise to learn you'll be waiting for a download whether you wanted to or not.

Most content on the service and industry pages is well done. Municipal and government entities pages are extremely short. All pages could benefit from being modeled after the qualified assets page which specifically spells out “what does this mean for your company.”

Newsletters pertinent to a service or industry are linked directly from those pages and readers can immediately join the mailing lists. Construction, healthcare and real estate all point to more pretty brochures (again, black on white), but they take too long to load–again, without adequate warning. As we mention above, do be sure to warn that the link is a large PDF.

Contacts for each industry and service are on each page, but the links shown directly initiate an e-mail (without warning!) instead of linking to a bio which is more common. Readers can only get to the bios from the Our Professionals link. We find readers appreciate the ability to access bios directly from the industry and service pages to which they relate.

The Our Professionals page offers search by name functionality. But what if we want to find people by location? Or by specialty? They've thought of it too because we found a statement under the search function that says "Search feature on Service and Practice/Industry Specialty under construction." 

Bios are average and are offered in a print-friendly format though, oddly, they are offered as Word downloads rather than PDF which is the preferred format. Bios only appear for partners, not the rest of the team, and photos are inconsistent in style.

Info Center is cool. It's apparent that an outside service is used to populate this, but it is done pretty seamlessly until one visits the tax tips link (Taxes QuickGuide) that opens off-site. It's a bummer that the event calendar appears to be empty for 2006 so we went backward to 2005 and found a lot of due dates. Pretty neat idea but the navigation leaves something to be desired.

The career area could be used more effectively as a recruiting tool. Current job openings is extremely well done with access to send your resume to them directly or even e-mail a friend with the information. We suggest more information on benefits to working at Goodman Co. Potential employees, like clients, want to know the benefits of working for and with you.

GoodCo U is a nice touch and the on-going training provided is a great benefit. It does seem that retaining good employees is important to Goodman. We also like that there's an employee log-in area. Wonder what's in there...?

Not a bad site at all, but honestly, we didn't spend as much time reading content as we would have if it didn't hurt our eyes to do so. The one thing we'd definitely change is the white or blue on black text.

Vitale, Caturano & Co.

URL: www.vitale.com

Substance	5
Team competence & commitment	7
Differentiation	7
Reasons to return	4
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	23
Navigation & usability	2
Attractiveness	5
Personalization & personality	8
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	15
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	8
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	46

NOTE: This site has undergone a major revision since our review.

Comments:

While Vitale's site review score is middle-of-the-road, they are creatively communicating differentiating factors about themselves and we wanted to highlight some examples for other firms looking to find ways to differentiate themselves.

First of all, the firm collects art and displays it in their offices. They've provided a virtual tour of their gallery on the Web site so even those who cannot make time for a private showing (an offering made on the site) have the opportunity to look through the art and read about each piece.

The firm (in a highly competitive labor market) also offers some enticing amenities for employees and to those who are in the market for a job. They stand out in one place the brightest and most entrepreneurial people research employers: the Web.

The review scoring is significantly impacted by the firm's poor navigation and painfully slow downloads (even on DSL and Cable). It is extra annoying because there is no warning that a visitor is clicking on a graphic file until the download has initiated.

The layout is clean and uncluttered and the nav menus are attractive, but the design employs lots of unnecessary small scroll boxes that are simply filled with lists and other non-critical content. Content that, with a slightly modified layout, would--in many cases--fit just fine within a standard screen view.

Content is very typical sounding and is pretty light on most pages with the exception of bios which are nicely done but would be even better if the practice areas and services mentioned in the bios actually linked to the related Web page. Also, there is no contact info on the bios! Either a terrible oversight or they'd rather not be accessible--not a good decision in today's Internet environment.

Another improvement would be to take the bio content out of the scroll boxes or provide a print-friendly option because, sadly, a reader cannot print a full bio from the site! Also, the bios aren't in the most intuitive location...it resides under About and is called Team Leaders instead of something ultra-obvious like "Our People" or "Qualifications" or whatever. And only partners are featured.

They do, however, get bonus points for having dynamic photos of very nice quality and the way the pictures appear when scrolling over the person's name on the Team Leader page is cool. I like that feature a lot. They also feature their pictures throughout the site which goes a long, long way toward connecting with visitors.

Another design weakness is the inconsistency of the CCH-provided content. The CCH pages in no way resemble the rest of the site. In fact, one would expect a firm of this size to be publishing their own content to a much greater extent rather than relying on a service for fresh content.

The firm offers some great training and even lists prices (bonus points for not being vague!) and nicely lists detailed job openings.

Beers & Cutler

URL: www.beersandcutler.com

Substance	8
Team competence & commitment	8
Differentiation	8
Reasons to return	3
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	27
Navigation & usability	7
Attractiveness	9
Personalization & personality	8
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	24
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	3
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	54

NOTE: This site has undergone a significant revision since our review.

Comments:

There is a lot a great stuff about this site. Inconsistency is cause for some of the lower scores. For instance, some content is extremely well-done (the Industry pages and the Careers sections are very nicely done) but other areas pull the overall score down. For every well-crafted practice area section, there seems to be an extremely light one to off-set it.

We like the Beers & Cutler Consulting related pages (a lot!) though, on the consulting main page, every single paragraph begins with "we" or "our." The "all about us" approach is a turnoff to a lot of people.

Some areas we feel aren't as good as they could be are moving the reader to action and remaining client-centric versus firm-centric. At the bottom of the Internal Audit Services page are some excellent questions that could move the reader to action nicely. If those questions and the other resources at the bottom of the page dominated the page's content (which is already rich), the firm may find the page even more effective.

The area where the firm could easily improve their score is fresh content. Articles are mostly 2002 and 2003 and the same with seminars. For a 200+ person firm, it is surprising they aren't generating a lot more great information. That being said, their Trendlines book is an amazing resource. One comment though...when offering a link like that, do be sure to note that it is a 113 page, graphic-heavy document people will be downloading!

The firm bios are quite good. They strongly support the practice areas in which the firm touts expertise. A main problem is that these terrific bios (in the form of a list of all people) are hard to find. One has to go to the About Us page and realize that Beers & Cutler Leadership is a director list and not an entity like the two Beers & Cutler LLCs listed after it.

We think the bios would be even better if the peoples' industries and service areas linked to those sections on the firm's site. The office reference on each bio is a nice touch. It's helpful to have that information and many multi-office firms forget it.

The photos used in the bios are of excellent clarity and seem to have rich dimension to them--quite unusual for black and white bio photos. Too bad only the "leaders" are featured, though.

We cannot say enough about the terrific recruiting appeal. This firm has made great use of multi-media to the generations that appreciate it most (i.e. not senior business people). The site also sports a very sophisticated job search and detailed listing.

The navigation is clean and easy with the exception of the buried personnel list. We like the site map and the site search feature (even though typing "bio" or "bios" didn't help us). The site design is unique and so are the color choices.

It will be neat to see what the next remodel of the site brings.

Stonefield Josephson, Inc.

URL: www.sjaccounting.com

Substance	8
Team competence & commitment	9
Differentiation	9
Reasons to return	8
TOTAL CONTENT SCORE (40 points possible)	34
Navigation & usability	8
Attractiveness	10
Personalization & personality	10
TOTAL APPEAL SCORE (30 points possible)	28
TOTAL INTERACTION SCORE (10 points possible)	6
OVERALL SCORE (80 possible)	68

NOTE: This site has undergone a minor revision since our review.

Comments:

Stonefield Josephson is currently our top pick from the standpoint of firm image and humanizing the individuals who comprise the firm. Lots of great creativity going on!

They’re doing so many things well: photography is exquisite, their Back Porch feature is unique, and the About Us page is simple, clean and useful.

They’ve done a great job of reinforcing their “We Pay Attention” brand throughout. We feel like we know them (though we don’t).

Their 8 industries and 8 service areas are an appropriate number of specialties for a 100-person firm so they don’t come across as trying to be all things to all people—a nice job of realistically representing their capabilities and service focuses.

Some areas where their scores were negatively impacted include recruiting where we don’t see much at all to specifically address this important audience. Though their quality of life values are reflected at the partner level, one wonders what life might be like for an associate.

We also feel the partner bios are a little light on specific experiences and we’re disappointed there is nothing about non-partner technical team members—no bios or contact information.

Many practice area descriptions are nicely client-centric and brief, but interesting. A handful, though, literally start every sentence with “we.” The firm also doesn’t seem to create much opportunity to interact with its audience via the Web site except to e-mail questions or requests for recipes.

Industry information is good, articles are terrific and the pictures and contact info readily available on each is a plus. So is the handy media page.

In general, from the color scheme and navigation, to their recipes and slide show features, this site is easy on the eyes and a nice reprieve from typical dull sites!