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A web site is a different sort of project than most people are used to working on. With most design projects, like say, business cards, a brochure, or a catalog, there’s an easily defined finish line. Those projects are complete when you’re holding your new business cards, a glossy brochure, or a gorgeous catalog in your hands. You can’t make changes after it’s finished.
A web site, on the other hand, is never really finished, nor should it be. We’ve come to expect change and growth on the web. A web site can be instantly updated with new text, new images, or entirely new sections and features. And if you and your web developer were smart about building the site to begin with, making these changes and updates should be relatively inexpensive and painless.
The revolution model
All too often, though, I see clients treating their web sites the same way they treat brochures and catalogs. They decide their business needs a web site, and they hire someone to design and build it for them. Then they ignore it completely for months or years, perhaps occasionally updating pricing or hours of operation when one of their customers notifies them the web site’s information is out of date. Then suddenly the client realizes that their web site has fallen woefully out of step with their growing business and they go about hiring someone new to design and develop a brand new web site. New design, new colors, new information and new photos. Only to ignore the web site again once it’s finished and to repeat the cycle again every couple of years.
This is what I call the ‘revolution model’ of web site management. Here are the reasons why it’s less than ideal:
- Your web site is usually out of date. Businesses (and people) grow and change faster than you think. If you only pay attention to your web site for a month or so every two or three years, that means that your web site is probably out of date an average 11 months or more out of every year. Customers come to your web site all the time, and they should always be getting the most recent information.
- It’s expensive. You’re paying for a brand new project from scratch every couple of years, and that’s not cheap. Over time, the money spent creating projects from scratch is going to outweigh money you could have spent on a series of smaller projects and updates.
- It’s disorienting to your customers. A customer who frequently references your web site for prices, menus, class schedules, or news is not going to be pleased to show up one day only to find that everything is new and they have to set about learning the new web site and figuring out where to find the information they need.
The evolution model
What if, instead of ignoring your web site for months or years on end, you set aside time a regular basis, say every two weeks or every month, to update information and brainstorm new features or information? You could set aside time and a budget for keeping the web site interesting, updated, and fresh. This approach has a lot of advantages over the revolution model, such as:
- Maintaining search engine positioning. People often think that search engines are only looking for key words, but they’re also looking for updated or recent content. A search engine is betting that information that’s stayed the same for two years is going to be less relevant and up to date than similar information that’s been updated in the last two weeks. When you ignore your content and your site stays the exact same for extended periods of time, you’ll often slowly drop further and further down a search engine’s results page.
- Information is always current. If a customer or potential customer visits your site only to find that it’s outdated and hasn’t been touched in months or years, they’re not likely to put much trust in the information they find there. Even if your rates or product offering or class schedule hasn’t changed, they’re not going to feel confident that it’s correct. And not all of them will take the initiative to email or call you to verify. Instead, they’ll go elsewhere.
- It saves money. You can grow your web site slowly, allowing it to remain relevant to your business and the direction that you’re growing. That means a lot less throwing expensive work away and a much higher return on investment. Listen to your customers – what are they asking for and what do they expect to find on your web site? Once you know what people expect and need, you can add sections, update information, or build new features to meet those needs.
- It creates a smooth and consistent experience for repeat customers. Customers who visit your site frequently are a lot more likely to take a new feature or updated photography in stride than they are a completely new design. They’ll still be able to find what they’re looking for and can learn new ways to get around slowly instead of being forced to learn a new web site all at once.
A simple case study: Facebook vs. Amazon
If you’re a user of Facebook, you know the angry protests that break out every time Facebook redesigns. You sign into your account one day only to find your account home page an alien land. How do you get to Farmville and how do you find out what your best friend Mary up to? You spend 45 minutes in frustration trying to find all those features you use all the time. And a couple of months later, just when you’ve finally figured it all out…you sign in one day only to find they’ve redesigned it again. You’ve become a victim of the revolution model of web site management. Even if the redesign was a big improvement to the site, you can’t appreciate it because you’re angry and frustrated at the sudden massive changes.
If you’re an Amazon user, on the other hand, you’ll be hard pressed to think of the last time Amazon redesigned their web site. I’ve been shopping on Amazon since 1996, and I can’t remember ever logging in and feeling disoriented, which is amazing, considering how very different Amazon is now. Amazon is very careful with updates and feature additions. They carefully design something new, then reveal it to just a small number of users. If there are any complaints or problems, they take it off the site and rework it, then try again. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny changes are released on Amazon’s site every year. And the changes are so small and incremental, we barely notice, though we surely take advantage of the new features and improvements without ever feeling angry and frustrated.
How to evolve
If you don’t have a web site at all and are in the process of building it for the first time, keep evolution in mind as you build your project. Will it be easy to add items to your navigation or switch things out? Will it be easy to update contact information, pricing, hours of operation or schedules? Try to make changes and updates easy to make, and if possible, make sure that information that will change frequently can be made without the assistance of a web developer.
If you’ve already got a web site that you’re frustrated with or embarrassed to be using, then you have a choice to make. Will small changes made over the course of several months be enough to bring the design and content up to date, or do you really have to completely start over from scratch? You might find it helpful if you’re in this situation to find a web developer or agency that you trust to consult with you about your site. Sometimes a few small changes can do more than you think. Make sure an analytics script like Google Analytics or Omniture is installed on your site so you can identify the most troublesome content and prioritize your changes.
And finally, don’t think of the web developer or agency you hire to work on your site as a short-term hire. Find someone you trust who you are comfortable working with long term. That way you can benefit from their expert guidance, will always have someone readily available to jump in when there’s an urgent issue, and can work consistently at evolving your web site.
A long term relationship with a web developer is like a long term relationship with your favorite auto mechanic. In the same way that you trust your mechanic to know your car and make recommendations for maintenance and replacing parts, a web developer will learn your web site and can make the best possible recommendations for improvements and new features. He or she will also know when something has become too outdated to rescue and will have to be replaced.
Make a commitment to evolve
No matter what state your web site is in – brand new, embarrassingly out of date, or still under construction – sit down right now and decide how often you’re going to review the site. If you’ve got a web site that’s easy for you to update, put an hour or two in your calendar every week or two where you’ll just comb through the site and update any out of date information or make changes to content that’s not performing very well. Check your site’s analytics and find pages that aren’t performing well and see what you can do to make them better.
If your site is a bit more complex or you rely on a web developer to make updates for you, then sit down with him or her on a regular basis to look at your analytics data and make plans for improvements and updates. You’ll keep your site up to date, the design fresh, and you’ll keep your customers happy and coming back for more.
