How your content management system can put you in control and be kind to your bottom line
December 10, 2015How to make your website the hub of your association
January 12, 2016It’s valuable every now and then to sit back and evaluate your website. The web is changing at a great rate of knots and while we’re all busy with our heads down taking care of business, our websites can sit idle and find themselves out of date and not as effective as they could be or superseded by competitors. We’ve put together a list of questions to help you evaluate where you site is at. Sit down with a cup of tea and have a discussion with yourself about what’s what on your site.
Current or Out-of-Date and Old-Fashioned?
Is your site content up-to-date?
Is your site mobile and tablet friendly?
Have you made any changes to your site recently?
What are you doing to keep your site content ticking over?
Are your newest products and services on your site?
How old are the images on your site?
Are the people shown on the site still part of your organisation/business?
If you have a blog, when did you last publish a blog post?
Are your social icons the current logos used by social platforms? (the bird, not the T for Twitter, the latest Google+ and Facebook logos, etc)
Well Organised or Hard-to-Read?
Is there a lot of text squashed together making it bit hard to read?
Is there a clear order to the layout?
Is there plenty of white space to balance out the information?
Is the text small or larger and well spaced for ease of reading?
Are there more than two or three fonts used across your site?
Detailed or Overly-Brief?
Does your website explain exactly what your business/organisation does or would it be unclear to the average visitor?
Does the give a good overview of services and products?
Friendly and Helpful or Indifferent?
Is the tone of writing on your website friendly and approachable?
Is it easy to make an enquiry?
Are contact details or contact forms easy to find?
Is your email newsletter signup prominent?
Are there calls-to-action for your visitors to respond to? (contact us, buy now, sign up now, etc)
Have you embraced social media as a way to engage your visitors and build your audience?
Use of images
Are images small/thumbnails or large and an integral part of the design?
Are images high quality or blurry?
Beating competitors or lagging behind them?
Visit your competitor’s sites – review them against all of the questions above.
How do you compare, what are they doing differently?
What do you like about their site?
What don’t you like about their site?
That oughta’ get the ideas flowing on what aspects of your site need some attention. These might be simple improvements or perhaps it’s time to consider a redesign to retarget your market and present your business at its best.