Prairie Magic Design

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Website Enhancement Checklist: Top 10 Essentials

In the last blog post, we shared the web design trends to watch for this year (bonus points if you remember, but here’s a refresher in case you don’t). However, there’s much more to a beautiful and effective website than simply plastering it with all the shiny new trends (which, by the way, we don’t really recommend doing).

With that in mind, we wanted to put together this handy checklist for anyone considering a redesign―or a brand new site―this year. Here are PMD’s top 10 essentials for an effective, well-designed website:

  1. User-friendly ― The first half of this word says it all: it’s about the user and his experience. Try looking at your site through the lenses of a potential customer. It should be fast, functional, and easy to navigate.
  2. Readable – Piggybacking off of the user-friendly aspect, a website’s readability is oh-so-important.  In addition to well-formatted content that’s easy to scan, the colors of background and text should have good contrast. It’s a basic design principle, but one that still gets overlooked!
    Responsive Website
    Responsive website design by PMD
  3. Responsive ― Since mobile viewing has now surpassed desktop viewing, it’s more crucial than ever to have a responsive web design that offers an optimal experience across a range of devices.
  4. Simplistic ― If you overwhelm viewers with a complicated or cluttered design, they will get frustrated and leave your website. It’s as simple as that!
  5. Purposeful ― Your overall site design and every element within it should serve a purpose: to keep your message in front of the viewer and ultimately convert them into a customer with clear calls to action.
  6. Quality content ― High-quality, original content not only engages your audience, but also has far-reaching benefits including higher search engine rankings. Here’s a helpful blog from Kissmetrics about creating great content. Also, triple-check for correct spelling and grammar―or have someone else help if that’s not your strong suit.
  7. Clear contact info ― This one may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many business websites are lacking in this area! In addition to an actual Contact page, the phone number, email, etc. should also be included in the header and/or footer of your website template.
  8. Optimized ― If you want your website to show up on Google search results (and who doesn’t?) Search Engine Optimization is critical. Here’s the kicker: SEO is ideally built into your site’s infrastructure and should be taken into consideration early in the design process. (If this wasn’t the case for you, don’t worry, there’s still hope!) Check out Google’s SEO Starter Guide to learn more.
    Purposeful Website
    Purposeful website design by PMD
  9. Sharable ― Include social sharing buttons on relevant pages throughout your website to encourage people to share your products, blog posts, videos, or other interesting content. Social media can drive a large volume of traffic―and if you have a large social media reach it can even have a positive impact on your search engine rankings!
  10. Tracking analytics ― One of the most powerful tools you can have is the ability to track website statistics. We use Google Analytics and can also help connect our clients’ sites to this valuable (and free!) tool. Check out our post on finding your comfort zone with web analytics.

What do YOU  think is the most important characteristic of a great website? Share your comments below!

 

 

Making Your Website the Foundation of Your Marketing

Most entrepreneurs are so busy trying to keep up with the demands of daily customer needs, worrying about marketing and updating a Website often feels like the least important task that needs to happen. The truth is, your Website is the backbone – your foundation – for getting new business. Your face-to-face session might be what seals the deal, but you have to make sure your foundation is holding all the current pieces together while maintaining stability for future growth.

Also, keep in mind that throwing a Website up and not touching it again for two years, is not really a good option either. You need to be checking your Website and making sure it works (that customers are visiting your site and finding what they need). If it’s not working, you need to spend time getting it right (or at least find someone who will).

If you are not finding the time to update your Website or track your visitors, here are some things to consider:
· What platform are you using? Some platforms can be tedious for non-tech savvy people to use. If you think your site is just too difficult to update, consider talking to us about what it would take to get your Website into an easier platform like WordPress. If all your content is usable and working well for your customers, it might not cost as much (or take as much time) as you think. The time-saving payoffs could be a great return in the end.
· Do you have an employee that you could assign this task to? If you are faster at sketching out your Website updates on a piece of paper and handing them off, do it! You might have some young techy on your staff who can make Web updates in the time it can take you to turn a computer on. Don’t be ashamed, just use the resource.
· Is it hard to remember to go out and track your Web stats? Google Analytics can track how useful your Website actually is by measuring a variety of stats. It will even run reports and email you numbers on a routine basis so it’s like having someone send you reports when you need them. If it comes straight to your inbox, it’s a little harder to ignore!

When planning a special campaign, make sure your Website is updated accordingly. Many businesses will throw out some fliers or mail postcards that boast a special for new customers. When the recipient of those materials receives the marketing piece, (if they have an interest) the first thing they do is turn to the Internet! There is nothing more frustrating than going to a Website to learn more about deal and not being able to find anything. Make sure to integrate your marketing and use your Website for everything it should be. This accomplishes several things:
1. It will allow you to create a more attractive marketing piece! Rather than junking it up with 20,000 words on a 4” x 6” postcard, you can actually take advantage of white space and people might pay more attention to what you have to say – there is something to be said for aesthetics. Tease customers with only the information you need to get them to your Website.
2. Use the space of your Website to further explain the special offer. Just make sure the special offer information is accessible from your home page and easy to find!
3. By getting people to visit your Website, you can cross-pollinate them with information! They may not end up being interested in whatever special you are offering, but they might find something else of interest on your Website…something that you would not have had space to mention on the postcard.

It’s been our experience that most people who feel investing in their Website is unnecessary also think the costs are astronomical. We’re here to tell you today’s technology makes it more affordable than you think. If you’re on the fence, call us for more information.

Finding your Comfort Zone with Web Analytics

Do you track your Web stats? If not, there’s no time like the present to get started!

Most people don’t track because they say they don’t know how or they don’t know what they’re looking for. Well, we can’t turn you into a Web stat pro overnight, but we can answer these basic questions for you so you can at least get started…

  • How do I track Web analytics? The short answer is Google Analytics. The longer answer is that you need to go get yourself a g-mail account. Just name it something like YourBusinessName@gmail.com. You must have a g-mail account to use Google Analytics, but there is no payment associated with this robust measuring tool. Once you have a g-mail account, go to www.googleanalytics.com. You just need to set up an account. This will include providing URLs for all the pages you want to track. This is as easy as copying and pasting links. You got this step covered.

GA

  • What analytics should I care about? Many people aren’t sure what to look for when it comes to measurement stats. With Google Analytics, the options are endless, but for now there are six things you can start tracking that will make sense and give you a basic understanding of what’s going on with your Website.
    • Unique visitors – How many NEW visitors is  your site attracting? Good to measure daily or monthly. Either way, if you’re running a campaign, this will help you track where the spikes in new traffic are happening.
    • Referring Pages – Where did these unique visitors come from? How did they learn about your page? Was it from Facebook? Was it from a review on Yelp? Maybe it was from a Google Search? You’ll want to know how the new people are finding your site.
    • Bounce Rate – How many people immediately leave your site? You’ll never have a bounce rate of zero because sometimes people just land on the wrong site and leave, but if you have a high bounce rate, you’ll need to start looking at user paths and why you’re prospective customers are not finding what they need on your site.
    • Conversion Rate – This is super important as it measures a specific action you want your customers to take. Maybe you want them to make a purchase or fill out a request for more information. Maybe you just want them to view a specific Web page. Your conversion rate ultimately tells you how successful your site is at getting your customers to do what you want.
    • Top pages – Depending on the size of your site, you might want to know the top 10 pages or you might only want to know the top three pages. This will help you figure out which pages on your site are the most viewed. This information might help you to boost page views on other pages as well. Or maybe these are the pages you want to use to announce big news because you’ll hit the most people.
    • Stick Rate – How long are your visitors staying on your site?
Example of a Google Analytics Dashboard
Example of a Google Analytics Dashboard
  • How do I know what’s good and what’s not? It’s hard to look at a single number and try to figure out what is good. Instead we want to look at the changes in our numbers. Once you’ve hooked yourself up to Google Analytics, start looking at the above stats regularly (once a week or once a month). If you’re doing this on a regular basis, you can start to see the changes in your numbers…are they getting better or worse? Are they always constant? Were there unexplainable spikes in some stats? If so, you’ll want to go back and look at the data and what was happening around that time to figure out what caused it.

Keeping track of these analytics on a constant basis can feel daunting, but it’s a good start to figuring out what you can be doing better. Having this kind of information can even be quite helpful when you’re hiring vendors to redo your Website or set up marketing strategies.