BC Business
Blueprint
When redesigning your website, make sure you have a blueprint first. Chances are, your company’s website is already in its second or third iteration by now – and chances are, you've already had at least one unsatisfactory experience with a web developer. Maybe the costs ballooned out of control. Maybe you just couldn’t agree on what colour palette to use. But before you throw another dart at the Craigslist board and hope for the best with your Website Number Four, ask yourself a few of these questions first.
Chances are, your company’s website is already in its second or third iteration by now – and chances are, you’ve already had at least one unsatisfactory experience with a web developer. Maybe the costs ballooned out of control. Maybe you just couldn’t agree on what colour palette to use. But before you throw another dart at the Craigslist board and hope for the best with your Website Number Four, ask yourself a few of these questions first.
While it often gets the glory, the design of a website – that is, the precise arrangement of the pixels – isn’t always at fault when a site is unsuccessful. Putting a fresh coat of paint on a rusty old car isn’t going to make it any faster. A fresh SEO campaign, on the other hand, might do the trick.
It’s tempting to blame the equipment, but unless there is a specific technical problem with your site – for example, you can’t update the content yourself – you might be able to inject new life in it yet. Even if you do opt for an overhaul, don’t throw out the nav bar with the bathwater: if there are elements of your old site that work really well, by all means build them into the new version as well.
Unlike your chicken dinner, you can’t just “set it and forget it” online. Your site needs fresh, topical content, not static pages, if you want to dominate search results and differentiate your brand online. If you’re not in the business of producing content, consider retaining your original provider for ongoing uploading and even copywriting. That way, they’ll also be around to make those other small but important adjustments that you might otherwise have ignored.
If you do pay for an upgrade, how will you know that your shiny new online investment was worth it? It may look nicer, but does it give you better results? As ScratchMedia’s Ben Hunt writes, the old web design method of simply guessing at what works is pretty much doomed to failure. Instead, you need to establish concrete goals, such as traffic, conversions, and SEO – before you start pushing pixels around – then measure them over time.
I, for one, believe that the days of clunky, one-off web projects that are obsolete out of the box are numbered. For one thing, clients are getting savvier and more demanding. Web publishing technology is getting more sophisticated and easier to use. And the web design industry itself is becoming more professionalized and accountable – meaning, sometimes, that clients need to be told they don’t need a new website after all.
[More web planning tips to come in Pt. 2, including inspiration, knowing your audience, and knowing your competition. We’ll also be publishing our new Website Planning Guide, which you will be able to download as a PDF.]
Have you been burned on a bad web project? What did you take away from that experience?