The three Rs to a better web site:
Reflect, Resolve, and Redo

By Elizabeth White
12-30-2002

It's time to resolve yourself or your company to build a better web site. Whether it is the start of a new year or smack dead in the middle of one, there is no better time to start improving your site than right now.

Where do you start? It is basically a process requiring you to reflect on what's working and what's not working on your web site, resolve to make the changes you know you want and redo. By redo I mean to redo frequently, and plan to redo again.

Market your site. It doesn't matter if you sell widgets and not web sites. Your web site is one of your products now. Sell it. Sell its convenience. Sell its information. Sell its online support. Your web site is one of your sales people. Give it something to sell. Your web site is an extension of your customer service. Help your customers to service themselves. Look at these three areas and plan improvements.

Groan. Go ahead. Get it out of your system. There. Now let's get to work because in the end (and I mean probably at the end of reading this column.) You'll start to feel more in control of your web site. You'll regain that feeling you had when you first launched your site. The best part is when you plan your changes rather than react to changes; you will have a more efficient and effective web site.

Reflections of the way life used to be

First go through your site and if you don't already have one, create a content inventory. This means know what is on every one of your web pages. It is tedious, it's not fun, but it sure is helpful. The benefit: You'll uncover outdated information, missing information, and opportunities to highlight existing information.

Take a look at your web logs and web statistics. Know what pages are being viewed the most and the least. If a really good page isn't getting seen, figure out why. Is it buried? Is it written well? Does it let the online visitor know what it needs to do next? Keep in mind that the customer is not at fault. You're site is. It is no different than having a poorly designed brochure, catalog, or product. Bad is bad and mediocre doesn't keep the online visitors.

Plan what to do and do what you plan

There are probably already things you know you need to change on your web site. Prioritize what needs to be done and set deadlines. This is pretty much a brainstorming session, but with action items attached. Get a notebook with monthly tabs and put something to do for each month.

Check with the different departments your company has and see what they have coming up in the next year. This way you are responding to change rather than reacting to it. Surprises. Yes they will be some throughout the year, it keeps life interesting. Plan for these surprises. For example, in June you might have listed: Update company information, post press release on launch of product enhancement, and surprise item. If there are no surprises than you still are making site improvements. If a surprise does pop up, you've allocated the time and resources.

Redo, again and again

No matter how big or small your site is if it isn't working for you by driving sales leads or enhancing the customer relationship, the site is not paying for its bandwidth. Should you scrap having a web site? No. Build a better web site. By better, think of streamlining how your online visitors get to the information, highlight complimentary information on different pages to lead the visitor through the site, redesign your home page to allow information and links to be updated more quickly.

When you are redesigning, plan both in the design and the maintenance of the site the ability to make changes. Involve your IT people. Involve your content providers. Find out what are the stumbling blocks to updating information and together figure out a plan to overcome the obstacles. Can some items be database driven? Is it a matter of assigning a person responsibility? What are the obstacles?

There. You've done it. You've set things in motion. Your brain is already thinking of things to do; improvements to make. Start writing those thoughts down. Remember the key to building a better web site is to simply to start.

Elizabeth White is the Director of Interactive Marketing at Experienced Design, an internet business solutions company focused on helping its clients maximize the internet to its full potential.

Copyright 2000-2004 Experienced Designs Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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