Things you can do for your site

There are plenty of things you can do to help your site's performance before consulting an expert. Many of these steps are things you can do on your own, before you even set out finding a web designer or developer.

Get your content organized

Organizing your content before you (Or your designer/developer) types one line of code is critical step too many people and organizations overlook. You don't even need to do this it your computer — you can pull out a good-old-fashioned paper and pen and start jotting down the different kinds of information you'd want present on your site. See if you can group all of this information neatly into five to eight different sections.

What you should hopefully end up with is an informational hierarchy that can serve as the basis for laying out the main menu. At the simplest level, most sites can be broken down into:

  • Home
  • Content (Products, Articles, Pictures, etc.)
  • About
  • Contact

Obviously this is a gross oversimplification, but it sets the stage. We could also quibble over semantics and argue over whether or not a homepage is really a section (In fact, for many sites the About and Home pages could or should be interchangeable), but seeing as all sites must have an entrance it can't be overlooked.

Define some clear goals

If your website doesn't have some sort of clear objective, it's going to be hard for anyone to analyze how well it's performing and how it could improve.

You know how there are supposedly only seven basic plots that all stories adhere to? There's a similar trend among websites. Generally speaking, your website should serve to do one of the following:

  1. Sell a product or service

  2. Build a user-base

  3. Disseminate information

You will likely find your site engages in all of these things, but it's important to choose one as the primary objective. If your site's purpose is ambiguous to the user, it's not going to do anyone any good.

See what your competitors are doing

Looking at your competitors' sites is a great way to brainstorm ideas for ways to improve your own. Because it can be easy to get caught up in superfluous details (Is that a gradient behind the logo? Are those PNGs or JPGs? Should our buttons be animated like that?) I recommend asking yourself the following questions:

  • What is the first thing I want to do?

    Ideally, this should drive the site's objective. If the site is for an organization soliciting new members, is there something immediately asking you to sign up or join? If the site is selling a product, is your eye drawn to a place you can quickly purchase it or find out how to?

  • Is it easy to navigate?

    Can you find your way from the front page to any page within the site with just a few clicks? Are you able to retrace your steps? Does information get lost or obfuscated the more you delve into the site?

  • Who does this site belong to?

    • Is the name of the person or organization easy to identify? Is it obvious from the front page or is it buried too deeply within the site?

  • How do I contact these people?

    Are these people reachable? Can you find your way to their contact information easily from every page on the site? What kinds of contact information are they making available and is it enough?

  • What are they doing to keep me here?

    • The first point aside, what else do I find myself wanting to do? Is there a direct way to engage with the site and it's users, or is the quality of the information enough to keep me clicking?

  • Why would I ever come back here?

    Will the content ever change? Does it seem frequently updated? Is it a resource worth bookmarking?

These are all questions you should ask of your own site, but asking them while viewing a competitor's is a great way to see what works and what doesn't.

Conclusion

These are easy, organizational steps anyone can take towards making their website more effective. Only after you've done


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