Don’t build your website in the forest

Would you build a store out in the middle of the forest? If it looked good you might get a visit from the odd bear and maybe even goldilocks herself but generally speaking the location alone makes for a bad business. This is what perplexes me when I see the amount of websites built in the forest and designed never to be found. Except by Goldilocks of course.

Who’s to blame?

I’m sure some people will blame the website owner for not asking for a functional website but for me I think the blame lies firmly with the web developer or designer. They are the ones who should know these things and guide their clients. They should know about the importance of SEO and having a digital marketing strategy around your website and stop seeing web design as a collage you have to put together with some words in the middle. A website is a business tool and needs to be facilitate the objectives of that business.

Here are some top tips to ask your web designers before they starts the work on designing your website.

1. Website Objectives: Have clear objectives been agreed as to what your business wants to achieve from the website?

2. Pre-Design Research: Has pre-design research been done to identify the content and structure needed to be search engine friendly.

3. Website Content: Have you been instructed on how to write and structure the content of your website by the design agency.

4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): While content and structure are key to SEO performance have you been informed of the ongoing process necessary to improve the performance.

5. Social Media Integration: Is the website being integrated with your social media platforms.

6. Other Digital Platforms: Is the site being integrated with other digital platforms like email marketing or blogging.

7. Is the Website Mobile Friendly? Can visitors navigate your site easily on a phone or tablet?

8. Is your site Content Manageable? Is it easy for you to edit content and add pages like blogs etc without having to contact the website designer everytime.

9. Digital Marketing Strategy: When the site is complete what is the strategy going forward to drive traffic to your site and engage visitors into becoming customers.