Business.Gov is a really amazing site and if you haven’t ever used it and you are a small business, you are missing out on a great free resource.
One of my favorite small business sites, Small Business Trends recently reported on it and they pointed out that the first version from 2004 was a dreadful mess with a ton of links and not much context. Re-launched in February 2009 with a new look, better software code and a social network, it still has tons of links and pushes you out to resources located on 22 different agency web sites.
While this is a good for small businesses to find information it still takes you away from the web site and pushes you into deep silos on their respective web sites. My personal opinion is that when they did the redesign that they should have made the content reside on their business portal and provide the links at the bottom of the resource page if the individual wanted to go their. Business.gov is a web portal operated jointly by 22 different federal agencies so you would think they could use a content management system that allows them to contribute articles, but I can’t tell.
It is a great improvement and the social networking feature is something I wonder was added because social networking is a hot area or they are really trying to build a community. There is a challenge with moderation and monitoring because as Small Business Trends found “be prepared to dig your way through the self-serving not-quite-spammers in order to get to the golden nuggets of information posted by the more community minded members”.
So all in all it is a good step forward with better features and design elements so businesses can locate the information they need as quickly as possible. My only hope is that they don’t wait another five years to upgrade it again.
Check out the new portal site at www.business.gov
Google+
