Smart website owners understand their website is a “work in progress” and never truly complete. The ideal website is updated regularly, if not constantly. But scope creep and other problems may cause the website to become unwieldy and appear disorganized to the average visitor. At some point the decision for a redesign is made.
When I offer a professional website review I ask the following questions:
Does this page or feature help the brand or hurt it? How?
Brand management can be tough. Just by asking this question fluff gets cut and important content gets pushed forward. This also reduces scope creep.
Is this page for: Vendors, Internal Employees, Potential Customers, Existing Customers, Search Engines, Other?
If I can’t tell who the page is for it needs to be reworked or cut. Every page should be clear in its intention and deliberate in presentation.
Can anything be cut? Should anything be added?
Content should be specific and comprehensive, not filler.
Sometimes pages are added to websites because competitors have similar pages. These pages tend to be short. While server resources are nearly infinite for an average site viewer patience is not. Get rid of these pages.
How is the site structure? How will the search engines view it?
The most important pages should be listed in places of prominence (above the fold and/or at the top of the navigation). This is a usability issue but also clues you in to how the search engines will crawl the site and how the PR/linkjuice will flow. The most important pages should be one click away at all times. Important pages include anything in the sales cycle like “products” and “contact”.
There are some links you want to down-play or deemphasize like “about” or “management team” type pages. While these feed the ego and should be included people will look for them if they are interested. These pages distract from the sales cycle and sometimes turn viewers off - if your profile is listed above the products it is clear where your priorities are. Links to legal pages like “privacy” don’t need to be in the header at all - these should be tucked away in the footer if they are really needed.
All links should be HTML, not hidden in JavaScript.
You may consider adding “nofollows” to pages that are essential but don’t help your search engine efforts like legal disclaimers.
Is anything broken?
Mainly this is links, especially navigation. Old sites may have dead links pointing out. This also applies to broken scripts and script errors appearing on pages.
I consider inconsistent design and navigation “broken”. It confuses the viewer and sometimes hurts the brand.
Should any pages be merged or moved?
Some websites offer more than one contact page - a general one and one for sales, support or press. If someone does a search for [contact yourcompanyname] which page should appear in the results? Other times a page will be included under the wrong subheading. Navigation should be intuitive. Large sites should include a search feature to help.
The main consideration for website redesigns should be enforcing the sales cycle, making presentation clear and including everything necessary without anything extra that distracts. If you do this a lot of the problems will clear themselves up and even your SEO efforts will be improved.
Posted in Website Designers, SEOs, Business Owners, Reviews, SEO, Web Design
No Comments »
