You can ask hundreds of business owners why did they start their business in the first place and they will all have different answers, however, ask them what they want for their business and they all will give you the same answer: Customers. This is when businesses turn to more innovative strategies and begin developing a corporate website.
Businesses develop corporate websites to enhance their online presence and make use of more innovative marketing techniques like social media, digital newsletters, e-commerce platforms and much more.
After going through the developing process you can finally say you have an amazing website, everything was thought to the smallest of details and it's ready to launch, and then... nothing happens. Nothing.
You think to yourself "what went wrong?" and there are a few things that might answer your question, such as poor design and performance, no mobile support and unclear objectives, but all of these mistakes in the final product can be summarized into one main issue: Time.
Let's face it, in a time where information moves at an accelerated pace, it's only natural that content stops being exciting and fresh very easily, this is why proofreading content and checking up on it every once in a while is extremely important during the development process in order for it to be as successful as needed.
But, what do you do when the website is already launched and its content is not doing the job anymore? That's when you pull out your framework.
In a recent article, app developer Richard Reis, pointed out that regular problem solving (find the problem, try a solution, try until it works) is time consuming and inefficient given it's "try and try again" nature. Instead, he summarized problem solving into "Having a framework and practicing it."
This is why Rootstack has decided to develop a small and quick framework to put into practice when you feel like your website needs a little touch up here and there.
- Review it
- Refresh it
- Stick to it
***Review it***
All of the content generated for your website probably came from a brainstorming session where you and your team threw in different ideas for the content guidelines, naturally, this content goes through extensive reviews and adjustments to meet collective needs which at the end makes you feel like you know this content well and everyone forgets about it after it has been approved because well, it's good enough, right? Might want to rethink that answer.
Reading the same content over and over creates a feeling of commodity in which you feel that this is exactly what you wanted to communicate and this feeling can lead you into the wrong way, this is when you need to review your entire website. Check the content, the call to action buttons, images, structure, resources, everything. Look at it from an in-depth point of view and think of your goals when you decided to develop the website and how well they translated into the final product.
***Pro tip:*** Holding a critical point of view over your own product can oftentimes be difficult, don't be afraid to bring in new sets of eyes and brains to go through the review process with you.
***Refresh it***
At this point you probably already identified a variety of mistakes and features that could be fixed in your website (if not then, congrats! You can skip to the end of this article for a *surprise)
These mistakes have to be managed and taken care of immediately while also studying other possible upgrades needed.
For example, how easy is it for customers to find useful information about your business when they go to the website? Don't be afraid of nit-picking and going over your website's information structure and navigation, your customers (and your business) will thank you for this.
***Stick to it***
This is the point where often businesses fail to comply and that just makes them lose time and go back to step one. Curating quality content in an innovative and responsive interface for users will mean almost nothing if there is no one there to use it.
Pair your website with an impeccable and comprehensive SEO strategy to launch it to the top of every search engine and track it's performance by integrating analytics, they will provide valuable data to help with decision making in the future about the website's path. In order for the website to be successful, you need to be consistent and stick to the plan, no one likes reading a website with outdated information that has no real value.
With this short and efficient framework, you can easily identify problems within your website and come up with solutions for every single inconvenient found. But you might ask, what if I don't know anything about content curation and website analytics?
***Lucky for you, Rootstack is a creative solution agency specialized in the development and enhancement of web, software, and mobile applications. Everything you need to transform your business and make it stand out amongst its competitors, we can do it!
Schedule a call with us for a *free consultation on how you can make your business grow or innovate in the market, you can do whatever you want with our advice.***