5 ways to avoid the website graveyard
Business websites are a complex piece in a complex environment. Their success is dependent upon thousands of factors, the main one being luck. But when luck is on your side, you really need to have your ducks in a row to take advantage and grow your business. Here are 5 points to keep in mind when building and maintaining your online marketing tools:
- Fewer words is better
- Your content is your main delivery method for your marketing message and arguably the most important part of your website. Keep your content as short as possible while delivery a strong point. Work with a writer to fine tune that message to maintain a consistent tone that is easy to read. And for the love of your non-denominational specific creator, make it interesting!
- A simple design goes miles
- Many sites clutter their home pages with as much content as they can fit onto the screen. MSN, Yahoo, Travelocity to name a few. But they also spend millions of dollars to do it right. And there are far more ways to do it wrong. Go simple. Apple, Google, Firefox. Web users are more likely to stay and navigate through your site if they feel you’ve got your sh*t in order. Remember, white space is your friend.
- Avoid a
- Along the lines of simple design, is simple navigation. An enormous amount of content can be navigated very easily if it is kept simple and obvious to your customer. Find a web usability expert to help you design your content and site structure to be a no-brainer for Grandma. If that’s not in your budget, get Grandma out and ask her.
- Keep it fresh, no one likes stale milk
- Maintaining a website is like growing a plant. It needs to evolve with your business and at least feel like you take care of it. Post interesting and relevant news about your business and keep it flowing. If you can’t keep a blog flowing, don’t have one. If the RSS feed is dry, get rid of it. Focus on what you can keep alive.
- If it’s broken, fix it or ditch it
- The previous points are about maintaining a relationship with your customer. Nothing will kill that relationship quicker than a broken site. Judging the customer-provider relationship may in fact end at your website if your customers feel like your site has let them down. Test your site thoroughly all the time and rid yourself of features that don’t feel natural and flawless. Don’t trust your web team to do it for you either. This is too important to leave up to someone else.
A good website will be easy to use and provide a message and possibly a call to action. The best way to find out of it’s working for you is to get people you know, who aren’t in your business, to give you their honest opinions. So keep it simple and make sure it works. Good luck!
Tags: content, design, fresh, functional, navigation, simple, testing, website