The authors of the One Minute Site Manifesto site can be found at www.oneminutesite.com and if this is designed with keeping their eBook in mind, I suggest that you have to read the whole webpage and still don't have a clear pictures of what it is all about. There isn't any compelling headline, or enticing body copy (which is all centered and hard to read). Really it makes a small business person wonder how they ever bothered clicking on a link to the site at all.

In defence of the "Manifesto" it does offer some food for thought. Creating immediate interaction with your site visitors is an intriguing idea, but using their site has an example of how this should be done isn't something I would advocate.

Larry Bodine, who is the Regional Director for North America of the PM Forum, a global organization of 3,000 marketers in law, accounting and management consulting was recently asked "Will a Company Really Decide to Hire Us Based on Our Web site?" to which he responded with:

Yes. Absolutely. Definitely.

Don't just take it from me. I've heard in-house corporate counsel say that when they are searching for a new law firm, they first peruse the Web sites of law firms on their short list. A mediocre Web site conveys that the will also give them mediocre work product. In-house counsel have told me that a bad Web site will disqualify a firm from further consideration.

The Globe and Mail recently published an article by Randy Ray who says:

Employers are increasingly turning to blogs during their recruitment process to learn more about prospective employees -- and for the growing number of bloggers, their efforts have become an on-line portfolio to showcase their talents, says Jim Elve, publisher of BlogsCanada.ca, a guide to blogs.

"If I am an HR director and I receive an application that says a person has a blog, I am going to take a look at it... I am going to see that this person is not hiding himself because he is saying 'go ahead and read my diary.' It gives me a pretty good glimpse into the personality of a person and shows how well he can put words onto paper," Mr. Elve says.

I think this confirms that the One Minute Site Manifesto is on track with their line of thinking, but as Larry Bodine implies, you only have one chance to make a good first impresson, so I wouldn't use the Manifesto website as a good example of how to do this. You need to quickly get to the point with a good headline, and a first paragraph that quickly identifies what you have to offer. Building interactivity elements into it can be links to blogs and discussion forums. If someone is interested in learning more about you or your services they will click the links, provided you have made a good first impression.

To do anything else, in my humble opinion, is pure suicide.