My New Year’s Website Resolutions

Well, it is that time of year...

 

Reflect back on 2013

How did your website go in 2013? Maybe your site traffic grew over the year. Perhaps you learnt more about what your website visitors through Google Analytics. Maybe you added a live chat function to your site and saw a jump in customer engagement. Take time to give yourself a pat on the back. The ways that clients seek and access information constantly changes and taking steps to keep up with those trends deserves a glass of bubbly - cheers!

Nobody’s perfect though and perhaps you have a few regrets. Perhaps you didn’t update your site content as much as you had intended to. Was there something in your website design hindering conversion? Don’t spend your news year’s eve drinking to forget so that you end up a crying mess in the corner of the room before midnight. Make 2014 the year that you make sure your website is helping you achieve your business goals and then get on with it.

 

Update your look

Search engines and customers both like updated websites.  A new layout based on solid design principles and business needs will bring back more traffic, more often. Perhaps 2014 is the year you think about adding new sections to your website, using video for the first time, starting a blog or adding a section for user reviews.

 

Lose some weight

It happens to us all as we get older. Another year passes and a few lazy kilograms slyly stack themselves on. The same thing happens with websites. As you site grows it gets slower and as a result it slows down.  While bulky pages are not the sole cause of reduced website speed  they are one thing you can consider trimming down to achieve your New Year resolutions in 2014.

 

Try something new

OK – so responsive design isn’t exactly new but the truth is that many sites have not even considered how they look when viewed on mobile or tablets. The amount of iphones and ipads that appeared under Christmas trees this year is astonishing and people are using them just as much as they are traditional desktops. How does your website look when viewed on an iphone? Can you customers easily direct their business you to you when they’re standing at the bus stop?  If your website is not already responsive, 2014 is definitely the time to do so. Don’t get left behind.

 

Get creative

Is your website starting to look a bit 2010? Design trends evolve constantly and having a dated website can lead users to assume you don’t pay much attention to providing them with a pleasant and engaging way to stay in touch. Perhaps it’s just a matter of updating some style sheets or re-skinning your existing site with a new look. Find the websites you like the most and consider why visiting them is appealing to you. Perhaps it’s the layout or image types or even just the font styles across the site.  Is there anything you can do to improve the creative elements of your website in 2014?

 

Reduce you debt

Perhaps your website was hastily put together under a poorly managed project some years ago. As a result, it now has limitations on the types of work that can be done on the site. This is what’s known as Technical debt. If technical debt is holding you back from achieving your website and business goals perhaps 2014 is the year to consider starting over with a new design or paying back that debt. If starting over is not an option for you then perhaps some development work that improves end user quality is in order for the new year.