Happy New Year!
Three things to think about for your web site right now.
New DESIGN
New year, new theme. As I always say, if I don't keep my site fresh, how can I recommend that you do the same?
As usual, I try to demonstrate what 'theming' can and cannot do. This is basically the same content as the old site, this time just re-arranged into a particular type of design often referred to as a 'one-pager'. The idea here is that I determined the materials that ninety percent of my visitors want to see and put it all on this single page. That not only gets right to the point, but it can also have significant search engine benefits.
Creating this theme was about ten hours of work. So you can do a lot to freshen your site in a short time. But as I've written before, the only reason this was so easy is because the content was already well organized so I could re-arrange it very easily. Now most of the time when people contact me to refresh a site, this is not the case. As I always say, think of your site from the inside out. Like a good house, if the basic structure is convenient, then it's easy to quickly spruce things up. If not? We should look at correcting the structure before we think about a new coat of paint.
I'll give you an example: one of the most common problems I see are sites where the stuff people will most often want to see is buried inside the site. Sometimes this is a strategic decision: you want people to see some general information before they get to 'the goodies'. But most often this is simply because either:
The site was built with a very generic 'template' and the owners simply 'color by the numbers'.
The owners didn't really think through what most people would want to do before going ahead. Maybe they just copied the look of a competitor that appeals to them, not considering that their competitor may not be all that usable either!
The best sites are the ones that you would want to visit. My layout shows the stuff that I know visitors want to see right away. This may or may not fit your needs. But the key idea is to get people to 'the goodies' as quickly as possible.
One final note: It's not just your visitors that will appreciate getting to the good stuff, fast. Search engines tend to rank your site based on where you place your content. If the important stuff is buried inside your site, it will not only be inconvenient for visitors, it will likely make that content rank lower with Google and Bing.
YOUR FIRST INTERVIEW
I know a lot of you wonder just how important your web site is... especially in relation to your overall marketing strategy. As I often say, for many businesses, a web site is basically a 'business card'. But it's also a lot like the suit you'd wear to an interview. It shows people that you're 'for real' as much as anything else. I'm going to suggest that this first impression is more important now than ever because this is your job interview.
A lot of your web site is (or should be) based on whether or not what you do is unique. If you're in a business that has a lot of competition, it takes a lot of constant SEO and SEM work to move the needle on your search rankings. You may be the best doctor, plumber or web designer in the area, but just try getting your name to the top of a Google page without a lot of hard work!
So you have to make a good first impression. When you get people to your site, you have to get them to see you in a certain way. Even if they first contact you by phone, the very next thing they'll do is go to your web site (or usually Google and then go to your site.) If you don't tell them that you're 'the one', they see the other people who do what you do and move on. You know it's true because that's what you do.
I still get calls every week from people looking for that 'COMPLETE WEB SITE FOR $399!' rubbish. And I've been the first to admit that these sites can have a lot of instant pizzazz. They provide absolutely terrible 'under the hood' features (slow performance, awful search engine ranking, etc.) But sometimes, clients don't hear that. All they see is the shiny pizzazz.
But what I want you to think about is how quickly such sites have stopped grabbing your attention. We've all seen so many of these types of sites now that, even though they look fine at first glance, they are kinda like all those strip malls you drive by every day throughout the area. Seen one, seen 'em all. A template-driven web site, even a snazzy one, is like showing up at a job interview in a cheap suit. From a distance it may look OK, but the moment a visitor gets a good look at you? You look just like everyone else. There's nothing special about you. Next.
When someone visits your site I want them to be immediately hooked. That's why I'm in business. There has to be something that makes a first-time visitor stop. "I've found what I'm looking for." I want them to see that you're serious about what you do and that you care about them. I want them to find what they want to find instantly. I want your site to be a reflection of the experience they will have in working with you. It may be just one page. It may be a hundred. But it's going to be what they need to be sold on you. And I believe that this decision happens in about fifteen seconds with some detail that says, "They knew what I would need when they put this site together."
Regardless of the other merits of your web site (search engines, on-line sales) the biggest thing I want your web site to do is to give that great first impression. Maybe it needs to stand out from the crowd. Or maybe it just needs to be very quiet and confident. Whatever the message, the bigger the web becomes, the more important it is that you have a presence that is uniquely tailored to your needs. Templates just don't cut it anymore.
New THREATS
You didn't need to be a fortune teller to predict that last year was going to see a lot more 'cyber-threats'. As I write this, there have just been new attacks on big government agencies. So this year will only be worse. What is frustrating to me is how few site owners are really taking this seriously. Now as a consumer, I completely understand the shrugs. On the one hand, there really doesn't seem to be all that much that we can do about preventing personal identity theft. On the other hand, since the banks cover most losses, it feels like if that were to happen to you, it would be about as annoying as, say, a flat tire on the highway. It might ruin your day, but certainly not your life.
I can only say again that this is definitely not the case with regard to your web site. You know how people use the term 'virus' for malware? Well, at the risk of sounding alarmist or crude, you should think of web site attacks just like that. I mean like HIV or any sexually transmitted disease. Consider:
If your site is on shared hosting, or even if it's a dedicated server that is part of a large hosting company (and that's almost everyone these days), you are at least somewhat vulnerable to any 'disease' that the host catches. Here's just one example. A very common 'hack' these day is not to attack your site, but to get into the database of your hosting company, grab their customer list and start systematically probing everyone (which includes you) on the list.
And like any STD, your site is in bed with not just everyone that you connect with, but also potentially everyone that they connect with. Another good example? Perhaps you process credit cards. Let's say that your merchant processor gets hacked. OK, now if they've been sloppy, the bad guys just got enough data to attack all their customers (which includes you). You see where I'm going with this? You have to be doubly cautious because you're not just protecting yourself from direct attack; your protecting yourself from everyone you've ever let into your system. And those guys (banks, ISPs, hosting companies) are much juicier targets than you.
Almost every web site I work on seems to also be a convenient storage space for 'other stuff'. Often it's side-projects that never took off or even unrelated personal documents. Out of sight, out of mind. A typical site review I do will usually find at least a few items like this. The 'bots' can search through data across the web so fast now that if there is anything on your site that can be damaging, it will be found. Sooner or later.
When we talk about the 'world wide web' recognize that this is no exaggeration. Literally every piece of data on the public internet can be accessed by anyone given the right tools and enough time. We can't really keep people out. The best we can do is make it as tedious as possible for them so that they go after someone else who is an easier target.
So the reason to be a lot more diligent about your web site than you may be about losing a credit card is that your site likely contains so many other links to information. But unlike personal identity theft, there are some things we can do to prevent it. And we really should take preventive action because of the exponentially greater risks from all those connected people.
The first thing to do is to schedule a site review we can go through the obvious weak spots (like the ones I just mentioned). We'll also do some tests to check for vulnerabilities to the most common hacks. Is this 100% protection? No, that's not possible. But it's pretty good. Like most security, the best strategy is to make you such poor a target that the bad guys go somewhere else. And since there are so many other potential victims these days, that's usually more than good enough.
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As I always say, I know you're busy. Hopefully my occasional nags help you think about how you can get more benefits from your e-marketing. But even if you don't have a thing for me to work on at present (shocking but possible) drop me a line anyway and let me know how things are going; market-wise or otherwise. It's always good to hear from you.
Wishing you the best New Year!
JC Harris
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