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How
To Analyze Your Website
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How
good is your website? Does it do its job? Is it
effective? These are all good questíons that
every business owner and marketing manager needs
to ask him or herself. The website has become an
essential tool for business. We all know we have
to have a website, but are we using this venue to
its greatest advantage?
Most people responsible for their company's
websites have stats packages and counters to tell
them how many hits, how many unique visitors,
where they are coming from, what their IP
addresses are, what browser they're using, and of
course the all important monitor resolution. So
what! Who cares? The real question is do we have
an effective website?
Now if you
have a transactional website, commonly referred
to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of
salës you are generating from your site, which
is important, but do you really know how
effective your site is? How many orders are you
losing because of bad layout, awkward design,
confusing navigation, and poor copy? How many
potential clients have you chased away because
you haven't put a telephone number on your site
and an accessible real-person that can answer
questíons?
A website is your business' public face. Big
businesses can look like mom and pop operations
and mom and pop operations can look like General
Motors. The design of your website should not be
taken lightly, its budget should not be an
afterthought, and the designer you hire should be
someone who understands more than code.
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Your Web-designer should be a
multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can
counsel you how best to deliver your marketing
message, and someone who can go beyond technical
issues.
You can spend a lot of monëy and have someone
analyze your site for you, but are you really
going to believe him, are you really going to act
on their recommendations? You can't sell somebody
something they really don't want - that may sound
obvious, but believe me, salës people do it
everyday. If you don't think you need a new
website, you aren't going to spend the monëy to
have one built. So the best way to tell if you
need one is to analyze the one you already have,
yourself.
Below is a set questíons you can ask yourself.
If you answer them honestly, you'll know whether
you need a new site or not. After you've gone
through the process, ask some colleagues to do
the same. See if your answers compare.
1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?
Every website should have a clearly defined
purpose. Having a website just because everyone
else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What
is your website's purpose?
a. Transactional sales-oriented site
b. Customer service support site
c. How to instructional site
d. Product or service demonstration site
e. Lead generation site
f. Marketing, branding, positioning site
g. Promotional campaign site
h. Viral or buzz creation site
2. Is Your Website Focused?
Too many businesses both large and small use
their website as an information junkyard, a
dumping ground for everything you do, everything
you've done, and everything you ever thought of
doing. This won't work. Customers are like
children; they want clarity, direction, and
unequivocal answers. Your website should be
focused on a singular function. URLs are cheap,
there is no reason you can't have different
websites for every major thing you do, or every
marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is
your website?
3. How Functional Is Your Website?
Everybody knows that websites should be easy to
use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too
deep to find what you're looking for, and of
course everything should work. Your website is a
communication tool. If your website doesn't work
properly, the only thing you're communicating is
incompetence. How functional is your website?
4. Does Your Website's Construction
Balance Competing Concerns?
Websites by their very nature are a compromise of
competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame
construction, HTML, Flash, client-side,
server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information
architecture, marketing communication,
transaction efficiency all compete for precedence
in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing
clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks
and unattainable traffíc numbers? Did you start
with an IT solution like a database and build
your site around a poorly conceived information
delivery system. Does your website's design
reflect your sites' defined business purpose or
is it a result of secondary technical concerns?
5. Does your website honestly reflect
your business personality?
Does your website represent and promote your
marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick
question for many small owner-managed businesses.
Marketing is not salës. Marketing is about
communicating who you are, what you do, and why
you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is
about image building, branding, and positioning,
in other words, enhancing your business
personality. Does your website honestly reflect
your business personality?
6. Is your Web-presentation integrated
into your overall marketing plan?
Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of
their business' marketing initiatives. Everything
your company does should reflect an over-riding
ethos, point-of-view, and personality. If your
marketing collaterals don't match your website
presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is
your Web-presentation integrated into your
overall marketing plan?
7. Is content king on your website?
I once had a fairly large manufacturing client
ask me to build a website based on a business
card and ten 8x10 glossies of discontinued
merchandise. This fellow was so paranoid that his
competitors would see what he was doing that he
hid his products from his customers. This
business is now bankrupt. We've all heard the
saying 'content is king'. Is content king on your
website? Does your website adequately display and
explain what you do, what products you sell, and
what services you provide? Are there examples of
your work? Are there testimonials from your
customers? Have you provided information on how
to order, how to use, and how to resolve
problems? Is content really king on your website?
8. Is your website an experience?
You watch television, you listen to the radio,
you read a magazine, but you experience a
website. Unlike other marketing vehicles,
websites provide you the opportuníty to deliver
your marketing message with the full complement
of multimedia tools. Websites can stimulate all
the senses, sight, sound, and interactive touch
in order to communicate and connect with your
audience. Websites are not brochures. Visitors
shouldn't just see your website, they should
experience it. Is your website an experience?
9. Does your website have a distinctive
look?
The notion of the flaming animated logo has
become a cliché for bad design and style over
substance, but that does not mean your website
should be aesthetically boring and visually
dreary. Your site should display clarity of
vision; it should provide functional page layout;
its use of colors, type, and static and kinetic
visuals should be distinctive and purposeful.
Your website should provide a defining
"Look" that enhances your business
personality. Does your website display a
distinctive look that represents your business
personality?
10. Do you list appropriate contact
information on your website?
I remember going to a meeting with a client who
was in the construction business. The Vice
President of the company was hopping mad. He
demanded his email address be taken off the site
immediately. He wasn't going to waste any more
time dealing with client emails and inquiries.
Websites are all about connecting you to your
clients, not hiding from them. If you think you
can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ
and Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think
again. Does your website have adequate contact
information? Do you list appropriate email
addresses and telephone numbers for the people
responsible for various aspects of your business?
There you have it. Ten questíons that when
answered honestly will tell you whether or not
you have a website that works and whether or not
you need to rebuild.
About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a
Thornhill, Ontario based website design firm that
specializes in delivering their North American
clients' marketing messages using the latest
audio, video, and interactive Flash presentation
techniques to create compelling, informative and
memorable Web-experiences that enhance brand
personality and increase salës and profíts.
Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com, SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905)
764-1246.
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