Here at Backtobasics, we often use the term Brochure Website, but we sometimes forget that potential clients are not always familiar with these terms.

So, what is a brochure website?

Those of us old enough to remember the days of before mobile phones and rotary dials (I will never admit it!), can remember when every company that interacted with the public had a company brochure. This was either a single sheet of paper, or a foldout, or a pamphlet, or even sometimes a small book.

The purpose of the company’s brochure was to introduce the company and it products or services. Depending on the purpose of the brochure, it was either simple and succinct, or it was more sophisticated. But the vast majority of these brochures were simple one page documents that were easily pocketed, and easy to hand out. The purpose was to be an introduction, and sometimes a brief overview.

Enter the Internet age and the website. Today, almost every company of any size has a company website. These websites range from Amazon, Apple, and Google, all the way down to Backtobasics, Joe’s Coffee Spot, even your local boy scouts. And everything in between.

Websites like Amazon or Expedia are serious projects. They involve immense databases, major programming, and large numbers of web pages. Many of these pages are generated by a computer program, and involve integrating program generated information with custom graphics design. They are very serious efforts.

Websites like Backtobasics are much simpler. There may be some form handling, for example our form to request a quotation, or a form to contact the company. But overall the website’s purpose is to introduce the company and it’s services. In other words, it is very much like a company brochure.

Backtobasics’ website is, for the most part, a brochure website.

While brochure websites are much simpler than those like Amazon or Google, they still serve an important purpose. The purpose varies from company to company, but primarily it is to make your company visible on the Internet. In fact, possibly the most important purpose is to appear when someone does a search in Google. Heaven forbid that someone searches for a company providing your services, only to find your competitor and no mention of your company.

While brochure websites are for the most part the simplest websites to create, they do require a level of expertise to make them serve their purpose. Most clients believe that the graphical design is the most important aspect of a brochure website. In fact, this is what brings most of our clients to Backtobasics. There is an element of truth to this, but graphical design is not the most important element.

What is the most important element of a brochure website? In a word, COPY. What a brochure website says is as important as how it says it.

In future blog articles, we will explore how copy and design go hand in hand to make a website work, and how they relate to the all important question of SEO.