4 new year resolutions for your website

on 5th January 2016

(Last updated 24th March 2016)

So a new year is upon us, and whilst you might have on a personal level decided to have a dry January, go to the gym more often or even learn to dance the tango, you do as a site owner also have the opportunity to make a few new year resolutions for your website. 

  1. Organise regular get togethers with your agency
    Whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly and whether it’s in person or just a conference call, regular time to share ideas and discuss your business and your website are vital to ensuring you and your agency are sharing ideas and working as a solid team.
  2. Establish a development plan 
    It’s all too easy to simply drift forward with your website only briefing updates and enhancements when needed, however defining a 6 to 12 month action plan for your website is an essential way of ensuring your website continuously evolves and that you do not have un-neccessary last minute panics. It can also be really useful to plan in work to support upcoming marketing and event-based activities as well as established calendar events - e.g. Sporting Events, Christmas, Easter, New Year, etc.
  3. Run user journey tests
    Whilst each aspect of your website might have been meticulously planned, designed and developed, the user’s journey through the website as a whole is often forgotten. Take time to evaluate the user’s journey and test its ability to fulfil the visitor’s requirements - this rarely fails to pinpoint a number of achievable opportunities that can improve a site’s user experience whilst also making your website more effective.
  4. Understand your success criteria
    Whilst some site owners have simple KPI’s such as number of sales, other website’s success criteria are not as well defined resulting in a lack of focus. Establishing a set of performance indicators so that you can measure and track the website’s performance is vital to ensuring your website actually delivers for the business.

Naturally, there are many other things you could do, but these simple and very simple changes can really help to ensure the coming year is an opportunity for evolution rather than stagnation.