Why Rivets, Not Icebergs, Sink Websites

96 years after the Titanic sank, it was revealed that the people who built the famous ship had used cheap iron rivets where — as fate would have it — the infamous iceberg hit.

The true tragedy is that it appears the calamity of the Titanic could have been avoided and hundreds of lives saved …

Before we condemn the Titanic’s builders and financiers for their fatal cost-cutting decision, we should ask ourselves: Has the conventional wisdom really changed in the past 96 years?

Every day, small business owners to corporate CEO’s are forced to make decisions allowing dangerous leaks in the websites they manage.

Harlan and Wolff, the builders of the Titanic, continue to deny that their choice of rivets was to blame. However - while their competitors relied exclusively on steel rivets for a ship’s bow, stern and hull - Harlan and Wolff used low-grade iron rivets.

A new book on the Titanic, co-authored by Jennifer Hooper McCarty, exposes the panic at Harlan and Wolff before the Titanic was launched. McCarty, who studied the archives, said “The board was in crisis mode … It was constant stress. Every meeting it was: There’s problems with the rivets and we need to hire more people.”

Considering Harlan and Wolff were building three of the largest ships in the world – Britannic, Olympic and Titanic – all at the same time, it must have seemed a good idea to keep costs down. However, faced with a relatively common iceberg, their penny pinching proved disastrous.

This same approach is causing websites everywhere, every day, to sink. Maybe they didn’t have enough time or budget to make sure it was built right. Maybe they compromised. Maybe they went with the cheapest website builder or just chose the company that could finish the fastest. Maybe they decided not to hire a good copywriter. With the allure of selling the board the idea of one provider, maybe they gave the task of planning, building and writing the site to their ad agency.

So the launch goes ahead anyway, and when the site doesn’t sink it’s considered a success because, like the Titanic, it has every conceivable luxury – cafes, squash courts, a swimming pool, Turkish baths, a barbershop, three libraries  - and cheap rivets.

With that mentality, is it any wonder why - year after year - the average online conversion rate rarely reaches 2%?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

If your web strategy is more focused on bells and whistles than nuts and bolts (or rivets), maybe it’s time to stop playing shuffle board and get an online supplier focused on conversion to check ‘below deck’ at what’s holding your site together, before those leaks prove fatal to your business online.