Website personalization always seems like a good idea from a marketing point of view. Gaining access to consumer characteristics, frequency of visits, and usage patterns improves how we market our business, or sell our products. However, this coin has two sides, and the other side should be considered before investing time and money into website personalization.

"Personalization hasn't worked because most people don't have a compelling reason to personalize. It hasn't worked because the cost of doing it well usually significantly outweighs the benefits it delivers."

According to Jupiter Research, "personalized websites are four times more expensive to run," and "25 percent of consumers actually avoid personalized websites because they fear that their personal information will be abused."

For me, a good case in point is my local news channel's website, KTVB.com. When I access information from a website and I am forced to register or sign in to the site, I immediately look for alternative news sources. My initial dislike for this approach to websites is that my time is precious, and I am not looking to waste time registering with a site, and trying to remember those credentials for later use when I can gather my news from another local site, IdahoStatesman.com.

The same condition is true when I shop online. I do not care to be remembered as a customer, I just want to be able to browse for my products, order them, and check my order status when complete. I have too many logins and passwords for sites. Setting up a new account often becomes a headache.

"When I come to your website I want your view of how you will solve my problems. I want to get in and out quickly with as little effort as possible. How do you keep me happy? Simple."

• Teach your staff how to write well.
• Design a layout that allows me to read easily.
• Spend time creating a navigation that is simple and intuitive.
• Fix your search engine.
• Get the basics right.
• Garbage in, garbage out.
• Do you want to pay four times more for personalized garbage?

Read Gerry McGovern's, "Why personalization hasn't worked."

All references are from Gerry McGovern and Jupiter Research.