Each time a website is created, the hopeful expectations usually follow the Field of Dreams mantra, “If we create it, they will come.” With every subsequent website launch, you will usually see an initial influx of customers visiting your website. But how do you keep the customer coming back? How do you ensure that your website visitors are finding what they want and in a timely manner? The real challenge begins after your initial launch, with the maintenance and upkeep of your website. Realistic and incremental site improvements along with proper goal setting can help your website achieve repeated and measurable success.
Just as customers change over time, so should your website. The process to retain the customers of your website is a continuous cycle that should include five basic steps. To keep a site current and relevant, and to keep visitors coming back, the development cycle should be constant during the course of the website’s lifespan. It sounds daunting, but with a little planning it’s easily achievable, and much easier than building a baseball field.
1. Plan
Evaluate the goals of your website and always keep the main purpose of the site in the forefront of your mind. Some example goals of an effective website are to create brand awareness that retains customers, or to increase revenue while decreasing costs. Incremental site improvements will allow for gradual enhancements without committing to a complete redesign of a website. Many times a site redesign is unnecessary and the improvements could be better accomplished through simple design adjustments and relevant content enhancements.
Create Brand Awareness That Retains Customers
Your website can help to support a clear and consistent brand identity that translates into strong name recognition, which then transforms into brand loyalty. The trust that the customer has in your brand is developed in many ways. One of the most prominent ways is through customer satisfaction with your products and services. The information on your website can provide valuable information that helps the customer feel comfortable with your products and services. When it’s finally time to purchase a new product, the up-to-date information on your website can give the customer an advantage and a feeling of confidence in your company when they choose to interact with you, whether on the sales floor, through an online store or by contacting you over email or the phone.
Increase Revenue While Decreasing Costs
Increased revenue is a desired outcome of any website. A properly maintained website can increase revenue by helping to develop solid brand awareness and by improving customer satisfaction. It takes a little dedication and some strategic promotion, so always keep the website in mind when creating print catalogs or ads. Many costs can be eliminated if promotion of the website is considered from the very beginning, rather than as an afterthought. Your printed information should always provide website addresses to help drive the customer to your website for additional information. Another way a website can increase revenue is through the potential decrease in printing costs. By keeping your important information current on the web, the need to create print materials begins to decrease. Remember, it’s always easier to update a website than it is to reprint an entire brochure or catalog and less expensive as well.
Update Frequency
The frequency with which you review and change your site is dependent on identifying two items:
1) The needs of your customer
2) The business needs of your company
On a yearly basis, review the customer and business goals that you want to accomplish through your website. Customer surveys or user test groups can help determine if the customers’ needs are being met. As for timing, it is typically more effective to evaluate your website needs before yearly budgets are determined. Review the identified goals for updating your website to evaluate the frequency of when they need to be done. For example, highlighting particular sales promotions or new products may need to be done weekly, while a home page redesign may only need to be done on a yearly basis. Are your tasks realistic? When developing your website plan, keep your resources and technology in mind.
Upgrading to the Latest Technologies
Businesses should constantly evaluate new technologies to determine the benefits. Many times an organization will jump in with both feet before understanding how the software will integrate into their business. Before you rush to implement the latest and greatest technology on your website, be sure to determine how it will benefit your website, and more specifically, how it will benefit your website visitors. Don’t make the change for the sake of telling others that you implemented a newer technology. Timing is everything, and in the end, the customer is not concerned about what technology is being used; they just want to be able to locate the information they want when they need it.
2. Implementation & 3. Test
The implementation and testing phases are very important and will help to ensure a positive user experience. All links, pages and paths should be tested for both reliability and correctness. Also, check multiple browser types such as Internet Explorer, Netscape and Firefox to confirm that the design retains the original look and feel of your website and branding, and that all functionality is retained. Test continuously while you develop. Finally, have a group of test users evaluate the design and functionality of your site updates. You’d be surprised at the effect even the smallest changes can have on a website; they can vastly improve usability or cause the biggest headaches. After all of the time that you have invested in planning and implementing your latest updates, you would hate to lose a customer based on missing information, broken links, or poor layout choices.
4. Measure & 5. Evaluate
Once the changes have been implemented, you need to be able to evaluate how effective they were. Web analytics can often provide you with the information you need. You can effectively measure where your customers are spending their time and plan accordingly to keep the content current and fresh in those areas. You’ll quickly see that some changes are not as cost beneficial as others. It can be a slow process of learning what works from what doesn’t, but dedicated analysis and detailed documentation will always lead you down the right path. It is inevitable that not all changes will work as well as others; this is the time to evaluate what initiatives should be kept and which need to change.
All websites should be evaluated on a consistent basis. Aware Web Solutions offers services that will help you make the most of your website. Our services include online strategy analysis, site redesigns, application development, search engine optimization and email marketing. If you are looking for your website to raise your expectations, contact us today.
If you have any comments or questions about any Aware InSites, feel free to contact us at info@awarewebsolutions.com or call 800-783-8919.