Blog
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Is your website ever finished?
Your website should never be the finished product - well at least if you want it to be successful. 
It is impossible to get a website right the very first time, and I'm sure most (realistic) people will admit that. It is therefore crucial that you plan to improve and adapt your website over time. However, without measuring your website performance it will be very difficult to judge if the changes you are making a difference.
There are many tools available that will help you to measure the effectiveness of your website, but the main tool everyone should use is website statistics. Google provide free stats for your website which allow you to track each and every visitor to your website. They give you the ability to see what keywords people are typing into search engines to find your site, which pages are getting the most hits, how long each visitor spends on your site and many more details.
By knowing what is happening on your website, it allows you to start making improvements in order to increase its effectiveness.
So how do you go about improving your site?
The first thing to do is to set out your goals or "success criteria". This is very important because if you don't know where you are going then how will you possibly get there? Some key points to remember are:
- Ensure your goals are measurable
- Be specific
- Be realistic
- If things don't work, analyse why
Build, measure, adapt
Once you implement the changes to your site, the process starts again. As the diagram above shows, in order to keep improving your site you must learn from the changes you make (sometimes they may take you a step back), adapt your site, readdress your objectives and begin to measure again.
I challenge you to take a look at your site and nominate one thing that needs improving and follow this process. It doesn't need to be a massive change as even the smallest tweak can make a world of difference.
I bet everyone has something they can improve on their site. If you truly think your site is perfect, drop me an email and I'll find something for you!
