Have you taken the time to do a thorough website evaluation lately? That's right, your website- the front line of your worldwide sales force, your tireless, "never say no" marketing machine. Even if your company doesn't have a lot of time and resources to keep the site in tip-top shape, there are several things that evaluating your website can bring to your attention that you can do to tidy up at little or no cost. If you don't have the technical know-how to fix the issues that your website evaluation might bring to your attention, you can put any decent web designer or programmer on the job (nothing mentioned in this article requires more than a basic skillset).
Reiterate the Goals and
Purpose of the Site
Hopefully your company had a goal or purpose in mind
when the site was originally designed and launched.
It may have been to promote brand awareness, drive
sales leads, sell more product, etc. As the first
step of your website evaluation, confirm that these
goals have not changed, and if they have changed,
determine what your new goals and objectives are.
Throughout the process of evaluating your website,
continually ask yourself if each site element helps
to meet the goals of the site.
Take an inventory
Set aside a time when you can browse the entire site,
and try to conduct this visual website evaluation
through the eyes of a new visitor. Click on every
link and view every page. Hopefully, the site still
accurately represents your organization. Be on the
lookout for content items that are inaccurate, out
of date, or no longer important. Any such issues discovered
while evaluating a website should be addressed and
corrected as soon as possible.
Start a spreadsheet or
list
It's a good idea to keep a "to do" list
for the website at all times. This list can be as
simple as a Word document or as complex as a database,
including (at the very least) each item to be modified
(page, copy, graphic, link, etc), the desired action,
(add, remove, update), and the priority (low or high).
Then, if you or your staff happens to have a few minutes
here or there, this list can be continually reduced
in an efficient manner (or sent off to your web designer
as needed).
Eliminate Broken Links
One of the most common, embarrassing, and easily correctable
maintenance tasks is identifying broken links in your
website evaluation and fixing them. Working links
may lead to other pages (either to your site, and
other external sites) or to graphic images. Broken
image links appear as either a little red "x"
or a blank box representing where a graphic is supposed
to appear. Broken page links will result in the dreaded
"404 FILE NOT FOUND" error message. Hopefully,
through the process of evaluating your website, you've
already compiled a list of these annoying anomalies.
If you'd like to double check for additional links
you may have missed, you can use a free tool such
as the Netmechanic
Toolbox which will not only verify all of your
links, but also check for spelling errors (just don't
rely on this as your sole method for spell checking)
and perform other useful functions such as checking
page load time and discovering browser compatibility
issues. When you do come across a broken link in the
course of your website evaluation, it's usually one
of two things: an incorrect path to the graphic/page
has been used, or the graphic/page no longer resides
on the server. Have your webmaster correct the issue
in either case. No link is always better than a broken
one.
Clean Up Dirty or Distorted
Graphics
If you've successfully determined that all graphics
are in fact present and accounted for in your website
evaluation, the next step is to look closely and see
if any of them could use a little polishing. Graphic
editing programs have come a long way in the last
few years and can prepare and export graphics that
are much more sharp and vibrant. If, after evaluating
your website, you suspect some of your images may
have been placed on the site with older software you
might want to re-treat them (preferably using the
original art, photos, etc.). Also, if you see any
graphics that look "squished" or "stretched",
this usually means that the "height" or
"width" setting for that particular image
in the code is not correct. This is literally a 5
second correction that can make quite a difference.
Check Your Colors and Fonts
During your website evaluation, make sure that your
fonts are consistent throughout your site. If your
site isn't utilizing "stylesheets", you
may want to consider them. They are a quick and easy
way to ensure that each all pages employ the same
font treatments to similar content (headers, body,
links, etc.). While evaluating a website, you should
also check that your colors are consistent throughout
the site. If you've found that the background color
or pattern has become outdated or tiresome, it's a
very quick and painless procedure to give the entire
site a fresh look.
Update Your Information
If your site proclaims that your 'next' event is 10
months ago, or your "coming soon" has "gone
and went", bring the site back up to the current
date by addressing these types of issues. Nothing
says "your visit isn't all that important to
us" more then serving your visitors out of date
information. If you don't have the time or resources
to continually update your site, make sure that you
add as little time-sensitive information as possible.
Take Out the Trash
One of the nice things about a thorough website evaluation
is the opportunity to "cleanse" your site
of junk. This might include gimmicks or bells and
whistles that seemed great years ago but now serve
as nothing more than a distraction to the visitor,
prohibiting them from reaching the main objective.
Again, if it's not directly helping you reach your
sales and marketing goals, then get rid of it. However,
keep in mind while evaluating your website that one
person's junk might be another's treasure, so always
check with other people (particularly the boss!) before
throwing out the trash.
Once you get your site in tip-top shape, don't wait a long time to conduct another website evaluation. With a commitment to spending a few hours a month, you can maintain a quality, current web presence 12 months a year.
© Medium Blue 2007