question mark iconHere’s a question we get a lot:

What do you think of our website?

 

The answer to this seemingly simple question is not always so simple.

The most dangerous answer comes from a subjective view about its design – how it looks to you as an individual, or even as a marketing professional or a business person in general.

We avoid that type of critique. Instead, the digital team at Responsory focuses on how the site is performing for its most valued constituents. Here’s what you need to know about your website to objectively answer this question:

1. Prospects

  • Can they perform the functions necessary to qualify your business as a supplier/partner?
  • Can they swiftly and easily identify solutions to solve their challenges and current needs?
  • Is the next step in the process intuitive? Is it obvious and nearly effortless to take the action(s) necessary to move to the next stage of the new business cycle?

2. Customers

  • Is the site helping customers perform the tasks they expect to?
  • Is it facilitating quick and easy self-help needs?
  • Is it providing the info needed to utilize your products and services to their fullest potential?

3. Employees

  • Does the site fuel and streamline the sales process?
  • Is it supporting customer service?
  • Is it providing materials, links and tools that create a better relationship between your company’s representatives and their prospect and customer contacts?

4. Media & Community

  • Is the site performing as a quick and easy 24-7 resource for media and community contacts?
  • Does it cover the basic needs of these audiences, including easy downloads and obvious contact information?

Often, our client sales and marketing contacts can answer these questions based on what they’ve heard and experienced themselves.

But rather than rely on hearsay, we recommend surveying these audiences to get a firsthand account of their prospects’, customers’ and employees’ experiences with the new site. This can be handled in a number of ways, from telephone and in-person interviews to online surveys.

Prior to that effort, we use a variety of tools to inspect the site’s performance, including SEO and traffic analysis.

Generating traffic analytics reports for a 12+ month period before the new site launched and for the months post-launch provide valuable insights. There are dozens of scenarios that can be studied. For example, what were the most popular pages before the new site launched? How were those pages addressed in the new site? Do they continue to be the most popular? This path of discovery will help identify potential issues with navigation, content organization, usability and much more.

Have you launched a new site within the last 24 months? Are you considering a website renovation? Get in touch with Responsory’s digital team to get the perspective you need to ensure your website is as effective as possible.