The Internet is the most dynamic environment out there so, not surprisingly, it changes constantly. New technologies, new strategies and new creative ways of advertising are announced daily and it is very easy to be left behind and confused in this always mutating environment. There are many things to keep in mind when you think about reviving your old website.
That is why we came out with a little list of things you should focus on while thinking about redesigning or remodeling your business online presence.
Back to basics.
Think about what your business represent, what makes it unique? Maybe it's the products you sell or the uniqueness of your support, or even your fast turn around. You should have something to offer that makes your business unique. Once you find or define your specialty, a good plan is to focus on transmitting those peculiar aspects of your business to your customers as soon as they get into your site.
Many businesses fail in communicating to their customers why they are special and bringing up the topic of why they should do business with you instead of them. This is such a powerful yet overseen point that it can be exactly what your competition is not doing, so you can, with very little effort, capitalize on their mistake.
Consider your visitors.
Study who your visitors are and what they are looking for. You should already have some experience seeing your statistics reports and taking actions based on them. So use that same information and focus your most important pages back into your customers, give then what they came to see as soon as possible and try to avoid wasting time on something that does not enhance your visitor's experience.
Many people lose their focus and while trying to make their website design amazing and while they start to worry about having 15 different things happening on the site at the same time, they stop taking into consideration how complicated they are making it for their visitors to find what they are looking for.
Focus on what brings value.
We all want to add value to anything we have. More value on your website is always a great goal and you should focus 100% on it. Many customers, however, get entertained browsing their newly design website and start keeping a record of every little thing that look odd to them. While this is not a bad thing itself, one can easily spend a lot of time focusing on minuscules issues and losing sight of the bigger picture.
Don't get me wrong, you should love every corner of your new website but spending an hour debating if the color of the review's stars should be lighter or a bit stronger does not add anything of value to your business. And while at the end of the day you may have thought you made progress, in reality, you've just spent an hour debating about a color of a detail that is 5 pages deep inside your website. Meanwhile, Google, Bing! and Yahoo cannot list your site on their results because your website still doesn't have any information about your company on the homepage.
Management and updates.
You should be able to update and manage your site whenever and from wherever you are. If you don't have a dynamic website that makes your updates a breeze you are falling behind your competition and the Internet.
The difference between a website with a back-end administration platform and one without it is abysmal. Making changes to your site should be simple, as easy as sending an email, and you should be able to do it without any obstacles at all. If you are overwhelmed by the idea alone, we can help you and we guarantee you will be able to update your site 100% on your own.
Power your brand.
As mentioned before, statistics, social network presence, and display advertising should be into your annual budget. No matter what you sell or what service you provide, if you don't currently have competition working against you, you will have it shortly. Make sure you know your numbers and that people learn about you before they learn about your competitors. After your new website is complete and working properly this should be your top priority.
Security is essential.
Make sure your customer's information is as secure as possible and that there are very limited risks of collecting their information. Your reputation as a company can be at stake if your site gets hacked and it can definitely become a big problem for you.
A lot goes into making your website secure, from the correct coding to encryption and the transference of data between user and website, and there is never enough information to go thru while researching your service provider, you can learn more about security in here (this is a post we keep updating in order to keep our visitors informed about the latest hacking trends) that come up pretty much every day.
More information and trends for this new coming year can be found on our blog. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you need any help with your current website with no commitment at all. After all, you can never have too much information. Give us a call (305.368.9003) and one of our representatives will help you and guide you thru getting your new face online.
