Let’s assume you have a multi-channel marketing and communications strategy.
Of course you do.
Within that, you’ll have SEO, social media, email newsletters, conferences, content marketing, podcasts, networks and PR.
And in the middle of all that you’ll have a website. The most visible part of your organisation, the most likely starting point for any connection with your students, clients and customers. And, ideally, prominent on the most powerful communication network mankind has ever created (the internet, please keep up).
And your website was great once. The day the developers handed it over to you.
But, like driving a car off the forecourt, it’s deteriorated since that moment. But it’s become part of the furniture, and you invested quite a lot in that site. You want it to last. You want to sweat that asset, not start all over again. The trouble is that the last people to recognise they need a new website are the people who own it. You can prop it up for so long, but in the end, you need to get serious.
Your users will have noticed long before you and they will make judgements about the kind of organisation you are, based on the impression your website gives.
So how do you get that digital self-awareness? How can you tell it’s time for the digital Dignitas and to start again?
You can’t remember the last time
Every website has a lifetime. Generally 3-4 years will about do it. After that, differences in core elements will start to have a significant effect. The way that Google indexes your site, the CRM system you want to adopt, the advances made in best practice since then. And even the strategy of your company as a whole may no longer align with your presentation. It all needs starting again. If there’s no-one in the building who worked on the last website refresh, it’s time for another. Or a long chat with your HR team.
That design looks tired
One of the key indicators of the ‘it’s been too long’ problem is design.
Call us shallow, but looks do matter. Website design goes in phases - one day it’s all carousels at the top of your website, the next it’s all parallax websites which scroll on forever. Good design is timeless but sites that look old-school will make visitors feel that your school is old. A design refresh can do wonders for that first impression. And a good design can also, according to Google, affect your search rankings.
It’s not mobile enough
One of the key switches of the last decade online is that the majority of your audience will view your website on mobile. And it’s only really been in the last 5 years or so that developers have reflexively built websites as mobile-first environments. If that’s not been the case for you, then there’s lots to think about, but two of them are key (and are linked):
The user journey on mobile is liable to be cumbersome at best - fiddly navigation for users and a site which ‘collapses’ badly (ie converts from a desktop browser view to a mobile browser) and orders your key messages badly, giving the wrong impression. And a bad user experience is reflected in your search visibility. Google prioritises sites which offer good mobile experiences. So, if your site is poor on mobile, it’s becoming hard to find as well as hard to use.
The numbers are telling the story
Your website should be a driver of contacts - the bit that gets the conversations going, creates the opportunities. Some will be driving bookings directly through the site, some will be creating connections which lead to those sales. And you are, we hope, looking at the data - the number of visitors, the length of the user journey, the numbers landing on key pages, the number of connections, calls or bookings it’s creating. Are those numbers as buoyant as they used to be? If the numbers are falling, then your site will need some significant changes. As with anything - if it’s not working, stop doing it.
You can’t make the changes you want Often it’s the logistics that nail it. You want make that change to the website - change the name and photo of your new CEO. And you can’t. The CMS (content management system) is a pain in the fundament that only one person in your building understands - and you let her go months ago. No-one can work out what kind of page to create, how to add pictures or how to tag a page… As with the user-facing elements of a website, so the back-end of a CMS has changed a lot in the last few years and is (usually) simpler to operate.
Some CMS choices are made by developers with half an eye on the maintenance contract so they can charge for website changes - but editorial changes should be simple to do in-house. If not, it’s time for a CMS switch. Often to something universal like WordPress which, while not perfect, has the benefit of being simple to operate and there’s a gazillion developers can take it on for you.
So if you’re at the stage where you’re embarrassed to give out your url or if your web traffic is falling of a cliff, then it might be time to bite the bullet. We can help you with the conversation - an audit of your site can indicate where the problems are. Sometimes it might be a habit change of the content, a greater emphasis on SEO, and very few years it’ll be the big change to switch to a website which will impress your audience and drive your business forward.
We can chat that process through with you, so get in touch. We’ll be honest about what you need and will help you make the optimum choices to drive your web presence forward.
