How Often Should You Upgrade Your Website? Part 2 of 6

Website design is not limited to how nice your website looks visually.  Sure the look is a critical component – if people don’t like the way it looks at first glance, they are moving on.  But you also need to consider how your site works; both from a visitors viewpoint and from the backend viewpoint.Let’s talk visitors first.  How easy is your site to navigate?  Do you have too many layers?  Do your drop-down boxes block sections of your website?  Is your home page cluttered?  I think you get the point.  Your home page should be open and inviting.  Information should be easily found.  Contact information should be on the home page.  Most people do not want to click more than 3 times to find what they are looking for.

What seems to be a simple question, “what do you want your website to do?”, actually calls for a very in-depth answer.  You need to give a great deal of attention as to how you want your customers to use your website.  If your website needs to provide a lot of information, you will need to be able to provide the information in an easy to find and read layout.  If you need to display a lot of images, you will need to be sure to allow for the images throughout the website.  Take time a put yourself in your customer’s shoes.  Another good tip is to ask someone outside your group to independently critique your site.

Now let’s talk about the backend of your site.  How the backend is designed directly impacts how your site will operate and the overall cost.  Therefore, considerable thought not only needs to be given to the purpose of the site, but also to how you want the site to be managed.  If your CMS is not user friendly your site will quickly become stale and outdated.  Key questions to ask:

• who will be maintaining the site?
• how often do you need to make changes to your site?
• do you know the difference between structured content and editable content regions?
• will you be displaying images? if so, how and where?
• is your website consistent with your company’s image?
• does information and/or changes need to be approved before being deployed?

Contact us today for a no obligation critique of your website’s design and functionality.