Thinking about redesigning your website?

1.  Choose a content management system that is used by many people and is easy to learn.  I like really easy platforms like WordPress because it’s straightforward and jam-packed with additional functionality that gives me tons of options.  Plus, there is a lot of support online in case you run into any problems.

2.  Your website needs to be alive to serve any positive purpose in your business.  That means it should be updated regularly – at least 2-3 times per week.  Have a communication plan (what updates are you going to make?),  whenever something happens post it (you can schedule posts for publishing on later dates), and give various people in your organization (if not all) the power to contribute content.  You or someone you select can authorize publication or not, as you see fit.

3.  Skip special effects, flash animations, music, intros – anything that prevents your website visitor from seeing what they came to see, quickly and easily and without distraction.  Check out www.ibm.com or www.apple.com or any major website.  See any flash? No.   They spend a lot of money figuring out what works, so you don’t have to.  Imitate the best.  Sure, your website can be visually appealing, but don’t go overboard.  Make sure you know what your customers want before you redesign.

4.  Make the site easy to update and easy for web visitors to communicate with you.  No one likes to deal with mysterious strangers, except maybe on a dating site.  Experiment to see what works best for you.

5.  Design for Internet Explorer.  I only use Firefox as my internet browser, but 60% of people use Internet Explorer.  Make sure your site looks good and functions perfectly in IE.

6.  Don’t make your web visitors sign in or create an account in order to get any information. Everyone HATES this.  You will lose customers and the website visitors that could talk about you, write about you, or otherwise bring you other visitors/potential customers.  Don’t even give a hint that you expect your website visitors to sign in at any time in the future.  Just don’t do it.

7.  You don’t need to fit everything in to the window.  A web page can be very long.  In fact, there’s a whole school of website marketing that is all about having 1 really long home page and nothing else except for an order page.  Just make sure there’s nothing on the page that is unnecessary.  Remember, nobody’s afraid to scroll.

8.  Remember what the purpose of your website is and design with that purpose in mind.  If you want to sell, then make sure you’re selling.  If you want to get people to give you their email addresses, then make sure you’re offering something good in exchange or they won’t give it. Have a purpose and stick to it.

9.  Always add metrics.  You need to know if your website is working for you.  Get Google Analytics, StatCounter, SiteMeter or any other free statistics program to start.  You’ll be able to prove that the more often you update your site, the more visitors you’ll get, and the higher your search ranking will be when people search Google or Yahoo or any other search engine.

10.  Don’t be so serious.  Depending on your business, you can and should experiment with the look and feel of a website.  Do your homework, see what your competition is doing, borrow the good stuff and throw away the stuff that doesn’t work.  Be flexible enough to try new things.  You may just be pleasantly surprised at what works.