What to Avoid When Planning Your Website
What to Avoid When Planning Your Website
When it comes to designing websites, there are plenty of potential mistakes that can impact it’s ultimate success - from heavy image files slowing things down to poor navigation and wayfinding. If you’ve made the decision to leave the design and build to the experts, there is still a lot of graft required from you (the brand or business owner) which can come as a bit of a surprise, that is: planning your website.
As a business owner, you and your staff are the only people with the true insight we need in order to create the best website possible for you. You might have plenty of ideas, but without a bit of strategy during the planning stage, there are a lot of mistakes that can cost you in the long run. Here are a few things to avoid when planning your website.
Mixing messages
What do you want people to remember once they’ve visited your website? You might have a few messages and that’s ok, you can even list them out hierarchically. Trying to create a website that is all things to all people will lead to a confusing user experience, and a website that will quickly be forgotten.
2. Unclear business goals
One of the first questions we ask prospective clients is: “What do you want the website to do for your business?”. We usually go on to define User goals (what we think Users come to a website to achieve), but first we want to know what your specific objectives are as a business owner. For example “I want my website to help me get more bookings.” Again, there may be a number of business goals and that’s OK, but listing them in order of preference can be really helpful for everyone involved.
3. Too many cooks
We’ve worked up a very streamlined process for creating websites over our years in business, but that doesn’t mean that it’s infallible. Sometimes a project can have a speed wobble when a phantom decision-maker shows up half way through the process. Knowing who has the ultimate say in project decisions as well as whose opinions you’re going to ask - and sticking to those people - can be extremely beneficial. Defining your team and letting your design team know from the start can avoid massive delays.
4. Holding on to legacy tech
Remember when we thought keeping the tags on our beanie babies would make us millions? Lauren held on to one for years and then, on a recent Google search, realised it was still worth less than a fiver. Needless to say, she passed the toy on to her niece. People can be the same about old software and systems on their websites. Just because it worked for you then, does not mean it’s still the best, most efficient choice. The swift pace of technology means every couple of years, there are new opportunities to improve and streamline your website and its integrations. Holding on to old tech can hold you back. How useful are those boxes of DVDs in the attic? About as useful as the beanie babies.
5. Thinking that building the site will be enough
“If you build it, they will come”... does not apply to websites. Thinking about how you will get people to your website is incredibly important. Just because a website exists, does not automatically drive traffic there. Your budget for a new website might only be half of what you think if you want to put some spend into setting up your digital channels correctly or creating some supporting campaigns. One of the reason we got into business was because we saw the need for an end-to-end solution when it came to getting businesses online. A website with no launch strategy is as good as dead. Worth noting too, it takes Google some time to reindex your website so your SERP information will most likely take 10 - 14 days to sync.