Maintaining the Effectiveness of Your Web Site

Older Web sites are becoming obsolete at an increasing rate as new competitors enter the market and changes in technology allow new delivery methods for Web site content. For most companies, it’s impossible to launch a new Web site every few months to address an ever-changing marketplace, but constant evaluation along with powerful tools can help your users continue to find what they seek.

It goes without saying that Web site statistics should be regularly reviewed for changes in traffic patterns, but other evaluation methods should be used to ensure that your Web site is properly reaching your target audience:

• Evaluate your Web site on the newest versions of each of the popular Web browsers: Display capabilities change with each new browser version, so it is imperative that you stay on top of how your Web site appears on the latest browsers. At a minimum, test on the latest Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape. If you have access to a Mac, be sure to test Safari as well. Some advanced statistical packages will also tell you which browsers are being used to view your Web site. If you are getting significant traffic using an alternative browser such as Opera, be sure that your Web site works with it as well.
• Evaluate your Web site at different screen resolutions: There are several display resolutions currently being used by the vast majority of Web surfers. Change your Windows display resolution to match some of the different resolutions and visit your Web site. If you have a difficult time finding information on it at a different resolution, chances are that your visitors are too.
• Search for and compare with online competitors: Just because you’ve always faced the same competition from the same firms since the inception of your business doesn’t meant that there aren’t new competitors out in cyberspace who are taking your business. You may be pitted against many competitors that you’ve never heard of and your Web site might not be stacking up well.
• Determine what questions an interested member of your audience would be seeking answers to on your Web site and determine if the answers are easy enough to find. Many Web site owners approach their Web site as being a method of “telling visitors what I want to tell them”, but the most effective Web sites are constructed to easily allow visitors to find answers to questions that they have. After all, your visitors are the reason that the site is there. If they cannot find the information they are looking for, then your Web site is not doing its job.

Tools

There are many powerful tools that are inexpensive or even available at no cost that can help you evaluate and evolve your Web presence:

Evaluation Tools

• Google SiteMaps. This free service from Google allows you to learn a great deal about the searchability of your Web site and even allows you to “push” new content to Google instead of waiting for their spider to revisit your Web site every few months.
• Advanced search engine. An advanced search engine that shows the popularity of searches will help you determine what your visitors are looking for but cannot find in any other way than through the search engine. These results will allow you to more properly position and develop your content.
• Advanced Web statistics. An advanced statistical package will show you which browsers at what screen resolutions are being used to view your Web site, which pages are being visited (and which ones aren’t), and more. Services such as WebTrends and Web Side Story can help you evaluate the effectiveness of new marketing campaigns and edited Web site content.
• Feedback solicitations. Perhaps the best way to gather feedback about the effectiveness of your Web site is to solicit feedback on every page of your Web site. This will not only make it easy for your visitors to submit their comments, but will show them that your company is committed to delivering the content that they are seeking. Survey tools can also be used to solicit feedback.
• Link checkers. Most modern Web sites are built in such a way that internal links (links to other resources on the same domain) are always accurate, but even if yours is built in this manner, mistakes can still happen and external links (links to pages or resources on another domain) are always at risk of being broken.
• Browser checkers. There are many resources available to automatically check the appearance of your Web site in multiple browsers, platforms, and screen resolutions.

Evolution Tools

• Web content management (WCM). Web content management is a simple solution that allows your Web site to be changed as quickly as the market demands it to.
• Dynamic reorganization of content. Your Web site can be set up so that popular searches and links appear more prominently on your Web site automatically to help visitors easily find what they are looking for.
• Personalization. Each visitor has his or her own unique needs and viewing preferences. Allowing your visitors to personalize your Web site to their tastes will allow them to stay more informed about your company. The drawback to personalization is that a login is required.

NuRelm offers complimentary, personalized assessments of Web sites with no obligation. To request a free assessment, please visit http://www.nurelm.com/assessments and one of our Web experts will be in touch to present a professional analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your Web site.