WEB WORK DOES YOUR BRAND MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION?

INDELIBLE 3 KEYS TO BUILDING A BETTER

BRAND3

How to Get the Most Out of Your Website

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.”STEVE JOBS

Website is a Bad Word

IT USED TO BE THAT YOUR WEBSITE was just a location on the Internet that people visited for basic information. Websites were like pamphlets, with pages and pages of static copy and images. People navigated them based on hierarchical sitemaps that worked like the table of contents in a book. Blogging was about the most dynamic thing that happened online.

These days, a number of studies show that people are about 2/3 of the way to making a decision before they talk to a real person or step in to a meeting. The power and complexity of how people use the Internet is massive topic, but what we know for sure is that it’s hard to overstate the importance of your website. It is often your first and most frequent impression—your best chance to show people who you are and what you have to offer.

In short, websites are no longer simply sites. Given all they are asked to do—branding, marketing, ecommerce, customer service, media relations, talent recruitment and more—they have become rich, complex interactive experiences, like museums or amusement parks. And with everything that users now demand from a website, designing and building them calls for a creative mix of art, architecture, psychology, technology and development.

But the ultimate goal is simple: to create an experi-ence that meets both your business goals and the user’s needs, so you both are happy with the how the site performs and what it delivers.

This may sound easy, but it’s not. There is a huge gap between sites that achieve this goal and help to transform companies, and sites that may look nice but are essentially flashy relics of websites past. They don’t understand the business, and they don’t speak to the user, so they do little more than create passing interest.

This guide will help you understand the keys to building a website that works that works for you.

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“When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘if you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”PICASSO

Know Your True Colors

THE FIRST QUESTIONS MOST PEOPLE want answered when they come to your website are: “Who are you? Why should I want to do business with you.”

The first step to connecting with your users is to know your brand fundamentals. For instance, how accurately can you answer the following questions (and will your colleagues agree with you)?

»  What is your value proposition?

»  What is your positioning within the marketplace?

»  What is your brand personality—your style, tone, look and feel?

»  Who are your target audiences?

»  What is your brand messaging?

Truly thinking through your brand identity allows you to express it simply, precisely and coherently, which is the only way to be compelling in the digital landscape. This is the foundation of a successful website.

If you don’t know your true colors, then how will others find you interesting? Brands with a weak or confused notion of their own identity end up the wallflowers of the marketplace. They may have lots to offer, but no one pays attention.

TRULY THINK THROUGH YOUR BRAND IDENTITY.

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“Envy is ignorance. Imitation is Suicide.”RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Break the Mold

PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS OFTEN ASK if we can build them a website based on a template to reduce costs. This approach has its place, but it’s not something we do.

Why not?

Companies and brands strive at every touchpoint to distinguish themselves. Being competitive in a crowded marketplace requires differentiation.

So why would you opt to constrain your individuality from the start, while also building on a foundation that was either designed for some other purpose (like showcasing photography) or that has been used by many others. It might seem like cheaper, faster solution, but eventually it will cost you as your brand falters and fails to meet expectations.

These design and branding limitations are minor compared to the much bigger problem of providing the user with an intuitive experience. Templates make it very difficult to place yourself in the user’s shoes and develop intuitive pathways—the right sequence of content and clicks—that lead to a desired outcome, whether that means making a purchase, making a phone call, or just persuading someone to think a different way.

User-centric design and development is nearly impossible to do well based on a template. It’s like trying to create a round peg from a square mold.

TEMPLATES MAKE IT VERY DIFFICULT TO PLACE YOURSELF IN YOUR USER’S SHOES.

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“There’s no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.”E .B . WHITE

Content First D O E S YO U R C U R R E N T W E B S I T E seem outdated and out-of-touch? In addition to looking old and tired, has it developed a sort of Frankenstein feel?

Maybe things have been tacked on here or there to accommodate a new service offering, marketing effort or branding campaign. Possibly there’s a languishing blog no one has time write for—or a news section that was launched with great ambition in 2012 but has been collecting dust ever since.

If you’re website feels a little like your grandparents’ attic, you have a content problem, and it’s surely even worse than you think. Stale content is one thing, but ineffective content is a much bigger and even more common problem.

What do we mean by content? It’s funny that people talk about content as if it’s some kind of revelation. Is anyone surprised that a good way to get a person’s attention is to present them with an informative, entertaining combination of words and pictures on a topic that interests them?

Content has always been king. And in the online world, it’s what your user interacts with on your webpage every step of the way. Content IS user experience. By far and away the number one key to a successful site is how well you develop and structure content in a way that meets your users needs while also achieving your business goals.

When you put content first and make it an orga-nizing principle of website design, it can be a real eye-opener. And the more you know about your users, the easier it is to streamline content and design intuitive pathways through your site that act like treasure maps. The content you’ve created becomes subtle sign posts, guiding your users to a place that benefits both of you.

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“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” RICHARD P. FEYNMAN, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Track and Improve

I T ’S EXC I T I N G TO L AU N C H a website and tempting to think that the work is done, especially after so much time and energy is invested in such a big undertaking. But no matter how much thought is applied on the front end, nothing beats live learning.

Now is the time to test the analyses and assumptions that have been made throughout the project and continue to hone design, content and functionality to develop better user pathways and generate better outcomes.

The list of analytics at your disposal to diagnose your site’s performance is long, and that’s another topic of conversation altogether. But the larger point is that you need to be willing to experiment and make changes.

In every area of your business, you work hard to stay ahead of marketplace trends and dynamics—your website should adapt with you. This is yet one more reason to develop a flexible site that isn’t boxed in by a template design or a clumsy content management system.

YOU NEED TO BE WILLING TO EXPERIMENT.

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“Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‘You can do better than this.’”THEODOR GEISEL , DR . SEUSS

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LETS BUILD A BETTER BRAND TOGETHER