Or what about a pink elephant? For those of you not familiar with Seth Godin he has written numerous books about how to run a business using marketing, stressing the need to always be remarkable. As a point of illustration he uses cows. In a field full of cows a purple cow would stand out, you would remember, it would be remarkable. Until all the cows became purple of course.

A simple illustration that makes a big point, unless you stand out you are invisible. If you're invisible how are you going to sell? The point being that you need to create a product and organisation that is remarkable in order to get that much needed growth.

I've read his book and can summarize it fairly succinctly - how can you expect remarkable results without being remarkable? It's simple.

This got me thinking, a business a website, a business a website? Same principle. Why should I go to your website and read your articles? Why should I read up about your business when I could read up on 1,000,000 others? My conclusion was the Purple Cow effect.

There are many websites out that that are well designed, they look professional, they download quickly, they're all the same, they're boring. The idea of "safe" is becoming somewhat of a phenomenon on the internet like it is in business. The problem is you then don't stand out!

I am sure you must have spent some time researching potential suppliers on the internet? Like me you hit Google, put your phrase in and started to work through the sites to build up a list of potentials to talk to. However, have you ever noticed that after only a few sites you very often get the feeling that they are all starting to merge into one?

A site that was different would stand out, you would remember. But you will have to accept the fact that a chunk of people will hate it. They'll hate the site and wont like you for making it that way. But that's OK, you have really made an impression on those that "get it", and they will buy (actually or metaphorically depending on you site) - and they will tell other people that get it. And so on.

Web design briefs should be fairly simple. Give a list of your top competitor's websites to your web designer or agency with this brief - make it look nothing like those! See what they come up with, remember these guys are often very creative and will relish this type of challenge, and you should end up with a website that stands out, that's different, that brings in the business.

In order for this to work though the site needs to fit with the overall positioning of the organisation. It should still look natural. There is no point in suddenly creating a pink website out of the blue just because everyone else is using yellow. And this is the real trick, particularly in B2B organisations - to create something imaginative and different while remaining true to often conservative brand guidelines. But it can and should be done.

The elements to consider
There are many elements that make up a website and therefore there are many ways in which a remarkable website can come about. The three biggest and most obvious factors are content, navigation and overall design.

An obvious example. Sorry
One of the most famous examples of a website that didn't follow the trend at the time was Google. It differentiated itself using two main elements, overall design and content. Well actually it was mostly the lack of content that made Google stand out. While all search engines were packing as much information on the page as possible, as pioneered by Yahoo!, Google provided nothing but search results and the cleanest least cluttered design of the time.

Google's other advantage was of course its ability to return results that were at least vaguely relevant to the query entered. Interestingly enough Google's popularity is still based on being different and trying something new - although search wise there's nothing between the top engines for relevance nowadays.

Like I said an obvious example - but how much would you pay to be the obvious example in your industry?

In conclusion
Websites and businesses can not afford to become invisible through playing it safe. What was once considered safe, is safe no longer. What was once risky is now the standard. Technology and people are becoming ever more sophisticated. Inevitably this is putting ever increasing pressure on businesses to adapt, to change, to no longer do what was done in the way it was done.

Business are therefore putting more pressure on employees for results. Return on investment is no longer a term for Finance but for everyone in the organisation. Interesting solutions that can be measured will become the norm. A website that doesn't stand out wont get the returns required. An advert that looks good but doesn't achieve the results in a measurable way will be canned. Although this will inevitably increase pressure it should also lead to new and interested ways to communicate with prospects and clients. Even if that simply means using existing technology in new or creative ways.