Is it better to refresh your website or build it from scratch?

 

Your website should work for you.  It is a 24 hour employee that spans throughout the globe serving people of all walks of life, diverse languages, and a plethora of devices and their variations.  Consider these 7 recommendations to improve your website, visitor experience, and company performance:

 

1. Mobile First (Not mobile ready) - There is an ongoing debate about the differences between adaptive, responsive and mobile web design.  While a conclusion is drawn up, I can tell you this.  Just make sure the message gets across the moment your site or email is opened up on any of the following smartphone platforms: Android, Blackberry, IOS, Windows, Mobile - that is almost 100% of your viewers right there.  The method used, at this point, is irrelevant.  What is important, is the message you are trying to get across.

2. Calls To Action - Once your message can be viewed properly on most devices, what do you want your viewers to do?  Contact You? Shop Now? Buy Now?  Add To Cart?  - Different cultures and client groups work differently.  Change things around and see what works best.  Analytics will tell you exactly what is working and what is not.

3. Content is King - Still! - In the information age, content is the currency.  You need to offer fresh, opportune and relevant content in a regular basis.  If you have valuable information to offer, people WILL find you and the reality is, you don't even need an SEO expert tweaking your keywords and meta tags.  Many will strongly argue and disagree, but I'm sorry folks, when the content is right, keyword sniping wont make a difference.  Now, having said that, the Net is a very competitive medium with ginormous amounts of information.  Your content has to be really good to rise up above everything that is out there and become relevant to those searching for you.  Be patient... If you write it, they will read it.

4. Content Format - Now that you have the perfect content, presentation is key.  Think about headlines in a newspaper that entice you to read on, or the introductory paragraph in a blog, that make you crave clicking the "Read More..." button.  All cultures and societies are different.  Keep a close eye on the analytics and find out what works best on your site whether it is layer sliders, bullet lists, tabs or accordions, left column call-outs, or pop up banners (I hate those LoL)

5. Visuals - Color Color Color - Every site is different, and when a designer is "stuck" with a style, this may prove to be a challenge when developing a site.  Face it, most designers are artists, and the world is not perfect, so if you love your designer, make sure his designs portray the image of your brand, and the feelings your business wants to create rather than his own.  For the itmnetcom.ca website I chose the monochrome route, using the company's palette (black and red basically) - Some e-marketers found the colour scheme dull, but here was my strategy:  Giving the site a sober look will highlight ANYTHING that gets posted to the front page.  Sales will tell us if this was the right approach or not.

6. A/B Testing - My ex boss told me once, "When you don't know, you don't know!" - I figured that was an understatement, you know? In any case, with A/B testing, you actually know!  What is A/B testing?  It is a very simple strategy whereby you present the information on a website in two different ways.  You have the control format, usually the original, and the variation.  You utilize both of them.  Depending on people's behaviour (Sales, Sign Ups, Etc..) you actually KNOW what design structure works, and you replicate that throughout your site.  It is a good idea to test different things, but my suggestions is to stick to what works and don't fix what is not broken.

7. Navigation - OK, for the final step in the improvement of your website, is usually the first topic I present when I teach Web Development.  Navigation, the nav-map.  There are several types of navigation, hierarchical, global and local and beyond that several other styles.  Without going into detail I just want to state this:

• Be consistent throughout the site
• Don't make people think

If people are asking themselves "Where is this..." or "How do I..." on your site, you have failed, and need to make adjustments quickly.  The best way to review your user & behaviour flows in your analytics and then get people who don't know anything about your business and/or website and ask them to do specific tasks you would expect your visitors to do.  From there you will once a gain KNOW what you have to do.  Sometimes great design is not how things look, or how pretty they are.  It is how the site actually works and how people expect it to work.  

Have patience, it takes time, but I hope these 7 ideas will have a positive impact on your site.  My next article will be on Constant Contact: effective user / prospect communication.  I will discuss what works and what doesn't.  How not to lose your hair chasing "likes" and "followers."

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