Imagine it’s holiday time and you are off on a family road trip. There’s 3 of you with stuff to pack and limited space in the trunk of the car. It won’t all fit so something’s gotta give. It might end up being a compromise with the family, but with a business website it’s essential to set priorities.
How do you decide what to keep?
If you are maintaining your own site it’s easy to make changes on the fly. If you have a web developer it may be trickier but it’s your site so make sure you get what you want. Sure, take advice from the professionals but don’t be a slave to the latest shiny objects if they aren’t furthering your brand, achieving your goals and providing good value to your visitors.
Try this. Push your chair away from the desk and take a look at your current homepage and ask yourself:
- Where am I going with the site?
- Who am I expecting to come along for the ride?
- Do I clearly understand what visitors are looking for from the site?
- Does the navigation help or hinder?
- Is the imagery consistent with the site visitor’s goals?
- Am I asking visitors to churn through too much text?
- Are elements on the page distracting away from my conversion goal?
- Have I made it clear what action I want the visitor to take?
Your online business is hopefully going to be a long road-trip and there will certainly be stop signs, detours, roundabouts, a bingle or two and some back seat spats to negotiate but having a clear roadmap will keep you moving towards your destination.
