The technology used on the Internet is changing all the time, as are the browsers that render or display the code that has been lovingly crafted by your designers and developers. Techniques that were popular only a couple of years ago are now obsolete and you may need to rethink (or maybe just tweak) what you are doing on the web to make the most of your investment in the medium. Here are 6 areas you should review to decide if you need to do some work …
1. What Lies Beneath (the code)
If you have ever had more than one person work on your site – in other words different freelancers or companies – there is a good chance that each has used their own coding techniques to achieve the result. And quite often, they are not compatible with each other – or even standards compliant. The result? Your website’s code looks like the equivalent of a bowl of spaghetti.
This means that modern browsers might not understand it, and that means it might not display properly so people don’t get the important message you are trying to deliver. Furthermore, search engines might not be able to decipher it properly and it could annex sections of your site from indexing completely.
And don’t get me started with tables. Up until a few years ago, every novice developer used tables to lay out a website. Tables are hard to read and maintain (without a WYSIWYG editor), and they add an exponential fog factor for search engines and consequently weaken the value of your content. They are also technically invalid HTML code, so if your site uses them you should rethink your approach and have a spring clean.
Example: We recently took over the maintenance of a small website that had a JavaScript navigation menu and the basic HTML was not even structured properly. There were no bracketing HTML, HEAD and BODY tags in 99% of the pages. Although browsers managed to display the site, the lazy approach to style sheets, the endless embedded table tags, and the basic HTML coding errors meant that some of the site was invisible to search engines, the navigation didn’t work properly (or at all) on some pages, and some of the layout was broken. It worked when it was first built (mainly because IE6 was happy to accomodate poor coding by trying to do its best to render the site) but no longer works. Internet Explorer is now more standards compliant and many of the quirks of the older browser have have been removed, effectively ‘breaking’ the website when it was the original code that was actually broken. Having fixed these things, the result is that visitors can navigate the site and search engines can index it.
2. Not Getting to the Point (Intros & Flash)
As access speeds have increased, so has our impatience at website loading times. If the site doesn’t appear almost as soon as we arrive we tend to leave and click the next result from the search engine. Also, we use more and more different devices to access the web anytime and from anywhere. Some of these devices don’t display Flash and so renders your site inaccessible to many people.
Back in the day (up to a few years ago) the Web was still ‘new territory’ for many and their first foray into it was meant to look cool, to show off the new plumage. It was as if companies became strutting pheasants intending to make their mark. However, as the Web has become part of everyday life the expectations of website visitors have moved beyond strutting pheasants and they now expect to find the information they want quickly and with minimum fuss (ie very few clicks from where they arrive).
3. Going Incommunicado (Not adopting Social Media)
Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogs, Review Sites, etc) is coming of age and if you’re not in some way part of it your brand may been seen as a bit cut off from the rest of the world. While social networking is a skill that needs developing, we would recommend at least setting up a Facebook Page for your company as a way to engage and communicate with your prospects and create a platform to demonstrate your expertise outside of your ‘official’ presence. These platforms offer new ways to engage with other people and raise your business or personal profile. If nothing else, they help you effectively distribute news and other information which is an excellent first step in this arena.
4. Being a Cave-dweller (Not being Mobile)
The rise in the number of mobile (and non-desktop) devices - smart phones, tablets, TVs, games consoles, etc – is incredible. People are consuming content on the web in numerous ways that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. However, these devices have their limitations – for example not displaying Flash, or having much smaller screens – which means your site may not be viewable by some or many of your visitors.
Depending on your business, this may not be critical but it is something you should consider next time you do an update to your site.
Example: We have a client who had a website designed exclusively in Flash. It is a beautiful site, but since the owner got an iPhone he cannot see the site at all. We were asked to build a small HTML (static) version of the site so that people with mobile devices (and other accessibility needs) would still be able to find out about their business and contact them. The result? More conversions from the site and better SEO.
5. You’re not into DIY (Not using Content Management Systems)
Aside from personal choice of not wanting to make changes to your website, most businesses separate the tasks of updating the content and developing the website. The former is usually done in-house, quickly and on-demand, while the latter is usually outsourced. Development is a time consuming process, while content update shouldn’t be. However, when you outsource it to a developer it can take time to implement because they are busy doing what they do best – developing code – and your updates need to fit into their schedule, which means it can be a few days before they get done (depending on how many changes there are and how big your site is).
By not using a Content Management System (CMS), you risk the high costs of having to pay for every little change, plus you might not get the changes done when you need them to be done. Also, the longer term benefits of a good CMS mean that the coding is easier to maintain and the web pages are standards compliant (as long as your developer makes them that way).
6. Lack of Purpose (No Call to Action)
Your website is great. It has lots of useful information. It looks pretty. And, wow, that Flash intro rocks!
But so what? Why did you build the website in the first place? Was it supposed to be the showcase it has become, or did you build it to achieve something? More sales, sign-up to a newsletter, generating leads?
My guess would be that it was the latter, but over time or through lack of clear direction it has failed to achieve or wandered away from these objectives.
If you are suffering from any (or all) of these issues, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to offer some advice or quote for a makeover. Or feel free to discuss any of these 6 points below or over on our Facebook page.
