For most businesses and organizations, a Web site started out as an online billboard or brochure. As technology has changed — and it has done so at breakneck speed the last several years — Web sites have become online locations where audiences expect to get real services and take actions important to them.
“Modernizing” your Web presence — particularly if it involves multiple sites, complex e-commerce applications or extensive libraries of content — can be a long, costly (and sometimes painful) experience.
Our questionnaire can help you make an informed decision. The key is to keep sight of your organization’s goals and your audience’s needs. It can start with an idle comment: “Gee, the Web site looks kind of … old.”
Or with a complaint: “We need to add new photos to the site, but IT can’t work us in for another week.”
Or, worst yet, a nagging suspicion: “Are we doing everything we can online to have an impact?”
But how do you know whether it is time to redesign your Web site? Less than two years ago, a thoroughly modern Web site could ignore things with names like social media and RSS, accessibility and search engine optimization; it could do without Flash-based animation and “rich media”; it added new content weekly, if that often. It had no blog. When content needed to change, a technician was called in to work magic with HTML code.
But things have changed … and keep changing, almost daily it seems. What appeared up to date yesterday, today can seem so “yesterday”. More and more, organizations do not just have one Web site — they have many. Divisions, departments, product lines and service delivery units may have their own sites, sometimes under a corporate or organization umbrella, sometimes on their own. The more Web sites an organization has, and the more independently they operate, the more likely they are to dilute the power of your brand — and create the need for a new direction.
So how do you know when things have gotten to the point where your organization’s entire Web presence has to change too? How do you know when you have to contemplate the expense, the time and trouble it takes to redesign your Web site?
Your answer could come from months of committee meetings and study … or from a lunchtime hunch that “now is the time.” Either way, your decision could still be wrong if you don’t ask the right questions or understand the answers.
Let’s start with the basics. Your Web presence should do two things equally well:
1. Serve your organization’s communications goals.
2. Reach your target audiences and meet their needs.
Before you decide to redesign or realign your Web presence, build a solid foundation for your decision.
* What do you want your site to do? Does it do that?
* Who are you trying to reach? Is it one audience with similar characteristics, or are there many audience segments with different priorities and needs?
When you know those basics, you can start answering the questions below that will tell you if “now is the time.”
1. Has your organization rebranded since you last designed your Web site?
If yes, it’s time. The old design that fit your old strategy so well may now be marching out of step in the digital parade. That makes the decision very easy.
2. Are you trying to reach a new audience?
If yes, the odds are very high that you need to redesign. Organizations are increasingly trying to reach multiple audiences with differing priorities and interests and needs. Reaching out to a new audience is a clear impetus to redesign.
3. Has your organization launched a new product or service in the last six months?
If so, you almost certainly need a redesign unless you designed your existing site to accommodate new product launches.
4. Have your competitors redesigned in the last year?
If yes, you need to at least consider a redesign. If they did their work poorly, you may be able to stick with your current design. But if their redesign allows them to do things that you can’t or if they can provide services or goods in ways that are more user-friendly and you can’t match them, it’s time to redesign. If you do decide to redesign, use your competitors as a benchmark, but aim higher and learn from their mistakes. (You know they made mistakes.)
5. Have different parts of your organization (departments, divisions, branches or whatever they call themselves) launched separate Web sites in the last year that are not part of your overall strategy?
If yes, it’s time to corral them. Having too many Web sites delivering even slightly different messages can blur your priorities and dilute the power of your brand. Your redesign should aim to create an overall brand look and feel; it should also provide one set of tools for all to use (that will meet everyone’s needs) but still give each Web site enough freedom to develop its own personality and meet its particular audience’s needs.
6. Any time you want to make a change on your site, no matter how small, do you need to call in a technical expert?
If yes, it’s time to redesign. Nowadays, audiences expect so much of Web sites — including new, useful content regularly, if not daily. No organization can meet that audience need if it has to rely on technicians or technologists to make every change.
7. Has it been more than three years since your last redesign?
If yes, what are you waiting for? … Three years! Incredible changes have occurred in the last three years. We are not talking about out-of-style Internet colors; we are thinking of new technologies that did not exist even two years ago, much less three years ago. Blogging was in its infancy three years ago. MySpace and YouTube did not exist three years ago. More importantly, the number of high-speed, or broadband, Internet connections three years ago amounts to just a fraction of those today. That means your audiences have become accustomed to functions and services (from other sites, if not yours); if you cannot offer them, you are testing their loyalty. And Web visitors have proven themselves incredibly impatient and fickle.
The harder questions
If none of the questions above addressed your organization’s situation, your decision will be less clear-cut. You will likely have to consider two or even three factors to reach a conclusion. In general, however, if you see your organization in any three of the situations below, it’s time.
8. Has your Web site grown 10 percent in each of the last three years?
By growth, we mean number of visitors … page views … pages of content. If yes, you are probably stretching your site’s capacity to serve up all those pages to all those visitors.
It’s not a complete “no-brainer,” but you should be seriously looking at a redesign … and paying attention to the remaining questions.
9. Can your site accommodate offline marketing creative?
If no, you have to consider whether your organization can afford to produce marketing creative (ads, brochures, flyers, training materials, premiums, etc.) that can only be used offline. If you are spending money on television ads, you certainly want them to be available online as well as on the tube. The same is true of your radio materials. Surely you would like them to be part of a podcast or at least be available for your audience to download.
Let’s make this easier: If you do TV and you cannot put it on your Web site, it’s time to redesign.
10. Do you have ways to “engage” your audiences actively?
If no, you are certainly missing opportunities to develop your relationship with your audiences and deepen loyalty to your organization or your brand. Engagement can be as simple as signing up to receive more information from you … or as complex as making a purchase or donation.
Can your visitors send your content to their friends? Can they leave you a message? Can they comment on your blog? Can they create their own personalized version of your homepage? The more options you give your audience to do things they want to do (in support of your organization or your brand), the more likely they are to return to your site … over and over and over again … exposing themselves to your messaging and priorities.
Does your site give them enough reasons to come back? If not, it’s time.
11. Does it take more than four steps for a person to do what you want them to do on your site?
If yes, it may be time to redesign. The more steps it takes, the more likely they will be to quit … and leave.
Consider Amazon.com, one of the premier e-commerce Web sites. You can buy anything in four steps (assuming you have visited the site before and provided your address and payment information). Step one, open the homepage. Step two, search for the item. Step three, select the item. Step four, click on the one-step checkout.
On Google, you can find almost anything you want in three steps. Step one, open the homepage. Step two, enter your search term. Step three, select the search result you want.
You may not be competing against Amazon and Google directly, but your Web visitors are measuring their experience on your Web site against their experience on Amazon and Google. Your Web content has to be organized so that it can be found quickly and easily. Your site must be intuitive to navigate. In essence, everything on your site has to be obvious and easy. Is it? If not, time to redesign.
12. Do more than 25 percent of people who visit your site never go past your homepage?
If so, you have a problem, and a redesign may be needed to solve it. Every Web site gets visitors who stop in and leave immediately. But unless you put everything on your homepage, a significant proportion of your visitors should click deeper into your site
13. Do fewer than 10 percent of visitors perform an action (buy a product or service, sign up for more information, interact in some way) on your site?
Are you getting an increasing number of calls and e-mails from unhappy site visitors complaining they cannot find the information they want? If yes, you may not be expecting enough of your audiences. Or you may be making it too hard for them to do what you want.
This is one of the hardest issues to address. It goes back to your goals and your audience’s needs. We know because we help clients devise meaningful ways for their audiences to take action. If you are not getting results you reasonably expect from your visitors, it’s probably time to consider a redesign.
14. Does your site generate the data you need to make business decisions?
One of the great strengths of Internet technology is that it allows Web sites to track what users do and report those activities back to the site owner. Not all Web sites track visitor activity as broadly and deeply as they should.
If your site does not generate the data you need, you may need to consider a redesign or the addition of software that will give you the data you need in the form you need it to make wise decisions.
15. Can aging baby boomers and those with physical limitations do everything on your Web site that a person who does not have a disability can do?
The leading edge of the huge baby boom generation is eyeing retirement … through eyeglasses. Succumbing to the creeping limitations of old age, baby boomers are beginning to struggle with the small type, short text links and tiny selection boxes that characterize all too many Web pages; they are finding the mouse painfully similar to a mousetrap.
If that sounds like your organization’s Web site, you need to consider a redesign. A federal appeals court ruling in late 2006 may provide additional impetus for your consideration. The court ruled that Target Corp. violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because its Web site was not accessible to the blind. The court rejected Target’s argument that only its physical stores were covered by civil rights laws; it ruled instead that all services provided by Target, including its Web site, must be accessible to persons with disabilities.
In addition to challenging that enormous baby boom generation, you run the risk of losing potential customers, members or supporters among the millions and millions of individuals with disabilities that impede their use of “customary” Web tools like the mouse or small text.
Any organization can come up with a dozen reasons to put off making a decision about whether to realign or redesign its Web presence. As consultants to nonprofits, trade associations and corporate clients alike, we do not take this decision lightly. But we tell our clients that, as difficult as the decision can be, failing to make a decision has consequences as well — in frustrated or disappointed customers, lost opportunities and higher costs later on.
David Haase is senior consultant and director of editorial services for Virilion (formerly Mindshare Interactive Campaigns). This whitepaper is reprinted courtesy of Virilion.
You Might Need to Redesign Your Web Site If …
For most businesses and organizations, a Web site started out as an online billboard or brochure. As technology has changed — and it has done so at breakneck speed the last several years — Web sites have become online locations where audiences expect to get real services and take actions important to them.
“Modernizing” your Web presence — particularly if it involves multiple sites, complex e-commerce applications or extensive libraries of content — can be a long, costly (and sometimes painful) experience.
Our questionnaire can help you make an informed decision. The key is to keep sight of your organization’s goals and your audience’s needs. It can start with an idle comment: “Gee, the Web site looks kind of … old.”
Or with a complaint: “We need to add new photos to the site, but IT can’t work us in for another week.”
Or, worst yet, a nagging suspicion: “Are we doing everything we can online to have an impact?”
But how do you know whether it is time to redesign your Web site? Less than two years ago, a thoroughly modern Web site could ignore things with names like social media and RSS, accessibility and search engine optimization; it could do without Flash-based animation and “rich media”; it added new content weekly, if that often. It had no blog. When content needed to change, a technician was called in to work magic with HTML code.
But things have changed … and keep changing, almost daily it seems. What appeared up to date yesterday, today can seem so “yesterday”. More and more, organizations do not just have one Web site — they have many. Divisions, departments, product lines and service delivery units may have their own sites, sometimes under a corporate or organization umbrella, sometimes on their own. The more Web sites an organization has, and the more independently they operate, the more likely they are to dilute the power of your brand — and create the need for a new direction.
So how do you know when things have gotten to the point where your organization’s entire Web presence has to change too? How do you know when you have to contemplate the expense, the time and trouble it takes to redesign your Web site?
Your answer could come from months of committee meetings and study … or from a lunchtime hunch that “now is the time.” Either way, your decision could still be wrong if you don’t ask the right questions or understand the answers.
Let’s start with the basics. Your Web presence should do two things equally well:
1. Serve your organization’s communications goals.
2. Reach your target audiences and meet their needs.
Before you decide to redesign or realign your Web presence, build a solid foundation for your decision.
* What do you want your site to do? Does it do that?
* Who are you trying to reach? Is it one audience with similar characteristics, or are there many audience segments with different priorities and needs?
When you know those basics, you can start answering the questions below that will tell you if “now is the time.”
1. Has your organization rebranded since you last designed your Web site?
If yes, it’s time. The old design that fit your old strategy so well may now be marching out of step in the digital parade. That makes the decision very easy.
2. Are you trying to reach a new audience?
If yes, the odds are very high that you need to redesign. Organizations are increasingly trying to reach multiple audiences with differing priorities and interests and needs. Reaching out to a new audience is a clear impetus to redesign.
3. Has your organization launched a new product or service in the last six months?
If so, you almost certainly need a redesign unless you designed your existing site to accommodate new product launches.
4. Have your competitors redesigned in the last year?
If yes, you need to at least consider a redesign. If they did their work poorly, you may be able to stick with your current design. But if their redesign allows them to do things that you can’t or if they can provide services or goods in ways that are more user-friendly and you can’t match them, it’s time to redesign. If you do decide to redesign, use your competitors as a benchmark, but aim higher and learn from their mistakes. (You know they made mistakes.)
5. Have different parts of your organization (departments, divisions, branches or whatever they call themselves) launched separate Web sites in the last year that are not part of your overall strategy?
If yes, it’s time to corral them. Having too many Web sites delivering even slightly different messages can blur your priorities and dilute the power of your brand. Your redesign should aim to create an overall brand look and feel; it should also provide one set of tools for all to use (that will meet everyone’s needs) but still give each Web site enough freedom to develop its own personality and meet its particular audience’s needs.
6. Any time you want to make a change on your site, no matter how small, do you need to call in a technical expert?
If yes, it’s time to redesign. Nowadays, audiences expect so much of Web sites — including new, useful content regularly, if not daily. No organization can meet that audience need if it has to rely on technicians or technologists to make every change.
7. Has it been more than three years since your last redesign?
If yes, what are you waiting for? … Three years! Incredible changes have occurred in the last three years. We are not talking about out-of-style Internet colors; we are thinking of new technologies that did not exist even two years ago, much less three years ago. Blogging was in its infancy three years ago. MySpace and YouTube did not exist three years ago. More importantly, the number of high-speed, or broadband, Internet connections three years ago amounts to just a fraction of those today. That means your audiences have become accustomed to functions and services (from other sites, if not yours); if you cannot offer them, you are testing their loyalty. And Web visitors have proven themselves incredibly impatient and fickle.
The harder questions
If none of the questions above addressed your organization’s situation, your decision will be less clear-cut. You will likely have to consider two or even three factors to reach a conclusion. In general, however, if you see your organization in any three of the situations below, it’s time.
8. Has your Web site grown 10 percent in each of the last three years?
By growth, we mean number of visitors … page views … pages of content. If yes, you are probably stretching your site’s capacity to serve up all those pages to all those visitors.
It’s not a complete “no-brainer,” but you should be seriously looking at a redesign … and paying attention to the remaining questions.
9. Can your site accommodate offline marketing creative?
If no, you have to consider whether your organization can afford to produce marketing creative (ads, brochures, flyers, training materials, premiums, etc.) that can only be used offline. If you are spending money on television ads, you certainly want them to be available online as well as on the tube. The same is true of your radio materials. Surely you would like them to be part of a podcast or at least be available for your audience to download.
Let’s make this easier: If you do TV and you cannot put it on your Web site, it’s time to redesign.
10. Do you have ways to “engage” your audiences actively?
If no, you are certainly missing opportunities to develop your relationship with your audiences and deepen loyalty to your organization or your brand. Engagement can be as simple as signing up to receive more information from you … or as complex as making a purchase or donation.
Can your visitors send your content to their friends? Can they leave you a message? Can they comment on your blog? Can they create their own personalized version of your homepage? The more options you give your audience to do things they want to do (in support of your organization or your brand), the more likely they are to return to your site … over and over and over again … exposing themselves to your messaging and priorities.
Does your site give them enough reasons to come back? If not, it’s time.
11. Does it take more than four steps for a person to do what you want them to do on your site?
If yes, it may be time to redesign. The more steps it takes, the more likely they will be to quit … and leave.
Consider Amazon.com, one of the premier e-commerce Web sites. You can buy anything in four steps (assuming you have visited the site before and provided your address and payment information). Step one, open the homepage. Step two, search for the item. Step three, select the item. Step four, click on the one-step checkout.
On Google, you can find almost anything you want in three steps. Step one, open the homepage. Step two, enter your search term. Step three, select the search result you want.
You may not be competing against Amazon and Google directly, but your Web visitors are measuring their experience on your Web site against their experience on Amazon and Google. Your Web content has to be organized so that it can be found quickly and easily. Your site must be intuitive to navigate. In essence, everything on your site has to be obvious and easy. Is it? If not, time to redesign.
12. Do more than 25 percent of people who visit your site never go past your homepage?
If so, you have a problem, and a redesign may be needed to solve it. Every Web site gets visitors who stop in and leave immediately. But unless you put everything on your homepage, a significant proportion of your visitors should click deeper into your site
13. Do fewer than 10 percent of visitors perform an action (buy a product or service, sign up for more information, interact in some way) on your site?
Are you getting an increasing number of calls and e-mails from unhappy site visitors complaining they cannot find the information they want? If yes, you may not be expecting enough of your audiences. Or you may be making it too hard for them to do what you want.
This is one of the hardest issues to address. It goes back to your goals and your audience’s needs. We know because we help clients devise meaningful ways for their audiences to take action. If you are not getting results you reasonably expect from your visitors, it’s probably time to consider a redesign.
14. Does your site generate the data you need to make business decisions?
One of the great strengths of Internet technology is that it allows Web sites to track what users do and report those activities back to the site owner. Not all Web sites track visitor activity as broadly and deeply as they should.
If your site does not generate the data you need, you may need to consider a redesign or the addition of software that will give you the data you need in the form you need it to make wise decisions.
15. Can aging baby boomers and those with physical limitations do everything on your Web site that a person who does not have a disability can do?
The leading edge of the huge baby boom generation is eyeing retirement … through eyeglasses. Succumbing to the creeping limitations of old age, baby boomers are beginning to struggle with the small type, short text links and tiny selection boxes that characterize all too many Web pages; they are finding the mouse painfully similar to a mousetrap.
If that sounds like your organization’s Web site, you need to consider a redesign. A federal appeals court ruling in late 2006 may provide additional impetus for your consideration. The court ruled that Target Corp. violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because its Web site was not accessible to the blind. The court rejected Target’s argument that only its physical stores were covered by civil rights laws; it ruled instead that all services provided by Target, including its Web site, must be accessible to persons with disabilities.
In addition to challenging that enormous baby boom generation, you run the risk of losing potential customers, members or supporters among the millions and millions of individuals with disabilities that impede their use of “customary” Web tools like the mouse or small text.
Any organization can come up with a dozen reasons to put off making a decision about whether to realign or redesign its Web presence. As consultants to nonprofits, trade associations and corporate clients alike, we do not take this decision lightly. But we tell our clients that, as difficult as the decision can be, failing to make a decision has consequences as well — in frustrated or disappointed customers, lost opportunities and higher costs later on.
David Haase is senior consultant and director of editorial services for Virilion (formerly Mindshare Interactive Campaigns). This whitepaper is reprinted courtesy of Virilion.