Dragonfly Media Curacao

There are companies that want a new website every two years (sometimes even every one year) and there are companies that stick with their website for years/decades on end. Why fix it when it isn’t broken?

The ‘problem’ with websites is that companies usually don’t understand the inner workings of their website. They may like a design and feel that the design accurately reflects their marketing message, but they don’t always know what their clients think, how their clients are using their website and if the website is being found through search engines. Most important of all, they usually don’t know how (in)effective their website is in bringing them revenue.

Websites can be judged in different ways and a good website scores well on all criteria. For the purpose of this article we will look at 3 different criteria.

• Design - does the website look good and does it still accurately reflect the marketing message of the company?
• Functionality - can visitors to the website use the website in a functional way (i.e. order something, make reservations, give their opinion, etc.) and could they maybe do more?
• Findability - can the website be found by potential clients?

Design
Something that looks good isn’t necessarily beneficial to your company’s image. If the general style of your company’s corporate identity is postmodern, a good-looking barok design for a flyer is probably not the way to go. Corporate identities change though. The large mulit-nationals usually don’t allow their corporate identity to change much over the years, but small to mid-size companies are usually more nimble with how they present themselves. They do tend to forget their website though, and after a while you can see the difference between their on-line and off-line presence.

So, when you look at your website you should always try to see if it still accurately reflects your marketing message. When it doesn’t, it is time to change it.

Functionality
There is a world of difference between the way in which people used the web in the year 2000 and the way in which they use it now. Seven years ago the web was primarily a medium for finding information. Today, it has turned into a medium for social interaction and getting things done. Who still goes to a travel agent to dicuss holidays or to book a hotel?

To help your website earn you revenue you could add a site search, a blog, a forum, a booking engine, a shopping cart, a quotation cart, etc. If your website would benefit from applications like this and your website doesn’t have them, then it could be time to add them or get yourself a new website. Don’t forget: the easier you make it for people to buy your product or service, the more they are inclined to do it with you instead of with your competitor.

Findablity
This is a no-brainer, or course. If people can not find your website, they won’t even consider your company (provided they are researching or buying on-line). Many old websites suffer from such SEO no-nos as frames, lack of meta-tags, non-descriptive titles, bad page structures, etc. If you want to know how your website is doing in this respect check your statistics or let an SEO company make you a report.

If your website is not up to speed on one or more of these three criteria, you either need to get some work done on it or get yourself a new website.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 10:42 am and is filed under Web design, Internet marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.