Updating & Upgrading Your Web Site

Most businesses, it turns out, are still hosting first-generation sites that went up before the millennium. The majority of these sites are passé by today's "make-it-useful" standards -- sometimes embarrassingly so. It's a fair question: How many times since have you refreshed the graphics or content of your Web site? Twice? Once? Not at all?

Internet-savvy businesses will refresh the content on their Web sites regularly and will redesign their sites at least once a year. (Why? for one reason, sales staffs at some companies avoid steering prospects to a business whose Web site appears out-of-date or is difficult to use)

It takes only a byte or two of dated information for visitors to conclude they've hit a dead end or landed on an orphaned site. Plus, when a big-deal client clicks on your "urgent" invitation to attend an upcoming seminar, only to find that the event came and went back in 2002 and you simply haven't bothered to take it down, he will feel annoyed and foolish. And you'll be toast.

So consider this a wakeup call. It's the 21st century. Is your Web site still in 1999?

For the purposes of site facelifts, differences boil down to how frequently you must make changes. Consulting services may update sites only quarterly or even annually. E-commerce sites or research companies may require updates by the hour. You can, for instance, put a fresh "skin" on your old site without disrupting any functionality.

Here are some ideas that can modernize your site swiftly without costing you a bundle.

  1. Reduce the number of site pages. Focus on redesigning only the core 10 to 15 pages. You can then archive any remaining popular or highly trafficked pages into Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word documents that are suitable for download.
  2. Make the site a marketing tool. If you're not yet capturing data basics, such as which sites and search engines visitors are clicking from or which pages are most trafficked, get cracking. Use prepackaged software or a Web services provider such as Microsoft's FastCounter Pro to capture detailed information about site visitors. When visitors come to your site, what do you want them to do? Once you have answers, you can define the tracking metrics and develop the content, navigation and structure that will quickly satisfy your targeted visitors.
  3. Set up an e-mail program. Create an incentive for visitors to register or give you their e-mail addresses. Give away something your target audience will perceive as value for their exchange of personal information, like a prize for consumers or a white paper for business-to-business clients. Once you have addresses, send out useful e-zines or other bulletins.
  4. Create an online reward for prized customers. Treat your best customers with distinctive perks or discounts. You can give them their own area of the site without any special technology. You can also, of course, e-mail special offers.
  5. Speed loading time. In the beginning, fancy graphics and online applets were cool. Now, they're mere obstacles in the path of getting to information or products. Three words for you: Streamline. Streamline. Streamline.
  6. Revise the site's color palette and/or invest in a content management system. Stop relying on static HTML. For an investment of $5,000 to $10,000, anyone can get a pretty good CMS [content management system] and basically make most updates on their own.
  7. Insure visibility on search engines. Use text and text links to guide the not particularly Web-savvy users of your site toward the essential information they come looking for. Always include alternate text for graphics, and meta tags for the search bots.
  8. Align the site to the organization. No doubt, you've reinvented your business a half-dozen times over the past few years. How appropriate is your site now? What about secondary channels or pages? Many businesses grow their sites in piecemeal fashion. As new sections are added over time, the same messages or positioning is not always reflected in the copy throughout the company's entire Web site. Make sure your site's messaging is always in tune with offline marketing.
  9. Add testimonials or success stories. Ask longtime customers for quotes or permission to post their case histories and their satisfaction with your services.

Any of these ideas will help update your online presence. But the real advice is simply not to get lazy. Pay attention to your Web site whenever you shift direction or significantly grow the business. All marketing and messaging must be seamless -- consistent, uniform, multimedia and multi-channel. Move your Web site into the new century.

information gleaned from article by:

Joanna L. Krotz
Muse2Muse Productions
New York

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