Make the Perfect Website – By Not Being A Perfectionist

There is always room for improvement on anybody’s website – and if anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying (or just are looking hard enough). But making a website that perfectly meets your needs is not out with your reach.

The main problem many people come across when they are embarking on the journey of getting a new website is simple – too many options. The internet gives you an enormous number of options for your website; what pages should you have, should you add a video, what should your text say, how is the design going to cater to your brand and customers, should you add a gallery, how should you incorporate social media…the list could go on forever!

For example, a lot of businesses want us to add Facebook to their site. From that one small decision comes a mass of other decisions – do you want just a link, a full feed on the page or just a ‘like’ button? Will it be designed to fit in with your site or just simply follow Facebook’s design? Should it feed in anywhere else on the site?

 The many minor decisions like this, can spiral a web project out of control and cause massive delays in getting the website online. And at the end, once you’ve made all of those decisions and are happy with the outcome, your website could go online and…not perform well. This is for a really simple reason. You aren’t psychic and neither are we. When it comes down to minor detail of things, there is a great method you can use to find out which decision is going to work best for you, and more importantly, which works best for your customers.

Firstly, you must have decided on the purpose of your website. Are you wanting to sell more products? Do you want more enquiries? Once you know this, any later decision that you are struggling with, simply first think back about how it applies to your first goal. If you are looking to get more enquiries, and are struggling with where to put a Facebook feed, think about where Facebook fits in with encouraging people to enquire. Are people making the enquiries through your Facebook page? If yes, then it should probably feature quite prominently. If no, calls to action and ways to enquire should probably feature on the more popular page property, like the top of the page, and Facebook on somewhere lower for people who are unsure but may want to keep updated.

Secondly, remember that your website is not a finished product at any time. We are firm believers in facts, not guesswork, and because of this, we suggest the best way to find out what works on your website is to make a sensible decision with your goals in mind, put something online and test the effects. If you’re not sure whether your feed should appear on the left or right of the page – test it. Don’t delay your project trying to best guess what your website’s visitors want; put something online and let them tell you what they want through the stats.

Essentially, you want a website project going live when you’re about 80% sure it’s right. Those

last minor decisions that make up the last 20%, shouldn’t hold back the website going online, because all you are doing is delaying the website telling you the answers to those questions.

Pay attention to your stats and react to them; split test as much as you can and you’ll find your website will be reaching its goals in no time.

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