Last week I talked about using NetSuite's inherent capabilities for SEO, search engine optimization, which I believe are excellent. This week, I want to broaden the argument a bit and talk about using NetSuite's Content Management system to generate, manage and grow your company's web presence. Like so many of the posts here, this one started due to the pain that I come across on a pretty regular basis out here in the SME (small and medium enterprise) market. This started when a client that I have work with on a fairly regular basis asked us if we could help them make some changes to their website. Sure, of course we can. And then the pain started. I knew that a pretty large consulting firm had helped them create their original site, but I had no idea that they had done an almost complete workaround of the system. Yes, it's housed in NetSuite, but uses none of the features of the system that make it pretty easy and straightforward to maintain and grow a site over time. This site is full e-commerce, but outside of the shopping cart, the rest of the site is custom headache. Every little change takes hours to pull off. Adding a new product required almost a complete rewrite of the page that displays information on that product's category. All custom html. When I brought this up, very tactfully, with the original developers I heard that custom html was the only way to achieve the beautiful look and feel that they needed for a great brand. They were right about one thing: The client does have a great brand. But their custom code does nothing to enhance it. Half the time, when you look at the site it's out of alignment, or there are broken pieces here and there. So last week the client needed a couple of new items added, and we went through hell and high water and it took almost 4 days to complete. We just didn't have room on the project schedule, but tried our best to get it done. There are NetSuite clients reading this right now who cannot believe it. But it's true. What should literally take 4 minutes, and takes them often less than 4 minutes, took 4 days of screwing around. Another thing that I see a lot of is NetSuite client's who do not do e-commerce building their sites outside of NetSuite. What's the point with generating a web presence in NetSuite you ask? Well, if you are doing internet marketing I think that there are some really good reasons to consider a NetSuite web site. Understanding your site traffic is really only possible if you use NetSuite's Advanced Analytics. And again, managing content is so much easier with NetSuite than with a custom site. This is why custom corporate sites hardly ever evolve with the company they supposedly represent: They are simply to difficult to maintain for the non-coders. In sum, a custom html website has no upside and lots of downside. I used to think that perhaps the developers really did care so much about the look and feel that they had to do custom sites. Now I am not so sure. After the past 4 days I am starting to wonder if they create custom html sites instead of using NetSuite's native Content Management System because they can charge a lot more for a custom site, and the ongoing support work helps them to manage slow times. Hmmm... Of course if you are not ready to ask some good questions and really understand what you are buying, you might end up with anything. | 
