Substance and Style

When you build your website, you design it with certain goals in mind. As time goes by, it can be easy to neglect. A lot competes for your time and attention, and you might think of your site as “done.” However, it’s important to look at your site with fresh eyes periodically to make sure it’s still serving its primary purpose. Making small changes as you go can keep you from having to do a complete site overhaul down the line. You can always pay someone to audit your content, user experience, and search optimization. However, you can do a pretty good assessment on your own before taking that step. 

Before you begin, revisit the list of objectives you made when you built your site. Add any new goals you have made to the list. Take a look at your site’s statistics and think about how you’d like them to change. Think about what you’ll have to add to your site to make those changes happen and where those additions logically fit in. Keep this goal list with you as you go. Evaluate every page in terms of whether it’s helping to achieve your objectives. 

Next, go through each page (starting with your main pages since you likely won’t finish in one sitting), and ask yourself the following:

1. Does this page serve one main purpose? Don’t cram too much onto one page. Move content that isn’t related to the page’s goal to a different page that has its own objective. If the goal of the page is to drive visitors to a different page (from About to Services, for example), make everything about that first page guide people toward the second page. If the goal of your page is to explain your services, move information about your history elsewhere. Each page should have one clear focus.
2. Is this page easy to use and understand? Do the links all work? Is the information organized in a logical way? Are the headlines clear? Is there plenty of white space? Is the information current? Does the information display correctly on every kind of screen?
3. Is the design of this page consistent with your overall branding? If you’ve updated your print materials or product packaging, make sure your digital space reflects those changes.
4. Does everything function as it should? Can people easily make purchases and fill out forms? The last place you want people to be frustrated is where they’re trying to give you money.
5. Are your Calls to Action in the top third of your page? Don’t bury what you want people to do below where they will scroll to find it.
6. Does your content feature key search terms? Read more about boosting organic search results here.
7. Does your page load quickly? Tip: if you look at your site a lot, your device has a cached version of your site, which means it loads more quickly for you than it does on other devices. Try your site on other computers, phones, and tablets. Use other browsers. 
8. Is your page free of distracting spelling and grammar errors? You might think this doesn’t matter in today’s world, but it does. People have less time and attention than ever before; clarity of information is paramount.