Break Up With Your Website

Breaking up with your website means that you should remove any emotional attachment to your site. We see this problem infect many small businesses when they begin treating their website like a relationship instead of a tool. I know – you spent a lot of time and hard work on that site…

But when all relevant data points you in a specific direction and you ignore it in favor of your emotional attachment to “your baby” – you are only hurting yourself.

Some common scenarios

You spent a lot of time on that home page making sure everything looked perfect. You made some images and wrote a bunch of great copy about you and your business and what you do. But no one signs up. No one clicks. And visitors leave right away (psst you can measure all that in Google Analytics)… The data says you should make a change – but you don’t because you spent a lot of time on it.

You have a great product or service that nobody ever signs up for on your website. You think that having that elaborate sign up form will help you better target potential clients that you want to get to know. Really – people only want to enter their Name and Email Address so they leave your sign up page (psst you can measure that in Google Analytics).

You spend time setting up hundreds of widgets that you think are cool – but nobody ever uses them and they make your site load slow. By adding a ton of fluff you lose site on the main functions and goals of your website. You don’t want to distract visitors – you want to convert them.

Breaking up with your website allows you to…

• Make data driven decisions
• Focus on function
• Focus on usability
• Test everything

Data Driven Decisions

When making marketing decisions about your website try focusing on search and web analytics data you have. In a recent workshop with a client we found they were targeting the completely wrong demographic online. The market they were targeting online were not searching for what the website had to offer. This meant that search traffic was low and irrelevant. By tweaking some marketing copy and targeting a different market with content we completely change their web strategy. It wasn’t easy but it’s what the data said to do.

Focus On Function

I love a good design but when you focus on your design more than how your site functions you are likely losing out. There are well defined standards for laying out and designing a site that converts – whether you want someone to comment on your blog or buy your widget. By moving your focus away from what works to what you like is a bad move. Stay focused on the goals for your website and make sure your site functions to meet those goals.

Usability Matters

We’ve had clients with great products that were not selling online. In one case the reason was the shopping cart. The process sucked enough that they began to lose a significant amount of sales from it. If you’ve spent a ton of time on a process that doesn’t convert – it’s okay to start over. You could be losing sales or conversions online every day that you have an unusable sales funnel. Try buying your own product once in awhile. If you get confused – chances are your visitors are too. This is the same for any type of conversion. If your email list  is too confusing to get subscribed to – your visitors will have the same problems.

Test Everything

Once you have broken up with your website you have begun to remove any emotional attachment. This is good – now you can start testing. If you look at things like data instead of having an emotional reaction – you may learn that your well thought out headline really sucks and another works 100% better.

Do you have any questions about breaking up with your website? Let us know in the comments or jump in the forums!

[flickr photo from WebRanking]

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Get A Free Website From Google Sites

Google Sites makes it easy for anyone to create and manage simple, secure group websites. Getting started is easy, and there are a number of helpful templates. More than just a visual theme, site templates can include site structure and navigation, custom page templates, embedded gadgets, and more. Google Sites is powerful enough for a company intranet, yet simple enough for a family website.

Visit http://sites.google.com to get started

Block WordPress Before You Launch

If you are working on a WordPress site and do not want anyone to see it before you launch there are several things you can do.. I’ll start with the easiest first.

To block your WordPress site from search engines, click on Settings -> Privacy. Choose to block your site from search engine spiders. But don’t forget to switch this back when you go live! If you don’t – you won’t get any organic search traffic.

We call this security through obscurity – no one should be able to find your WordPress site unless you give them the direct URL.

Secondly you can use a plugin called “Registered Only“. This plugin allows only registered users (in this case your Admin user) to view your WordPress site.

Our last recommendation depends on what web host you are using.. But most of them will allow you to lock down a directory to a specific username and password. This is the most effective way to secure your site before launch.

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5 Things to do Before you Launch your Website

I know your excited – I always get excited too before launch. It’s never a great idea to launch a website without a web strategy plan, but if you don’t have time for a full plan – make sure you cover the basics. There are rare circumstances where a website is successful right away without up front planning. It has happened for me in one case with IowaFlood.com – but that was a good (lucky) implementation that was right place at the right time.

Before you hit the “ON” switch on that shiny new website (hopefully a WordPress site!) here are 5 things you should take care of…

1. Define your Goals
We always recommend you define your goals for the website before you launch. By defining your goals right away you have a clear focus and easily measured milestones. If you have no goals for the site – maybe you should think twice about launching. Afterall – it’s a lot of work.

2. Checkout the Competition
You probably already have an idea of another website you have used for inspiration for your idea – some that you wish to emulate. Combine that list with the first page of Google results for the search terms you are targeting on your website. Now visit those sites and simply check out what they are doing… How are they converting leads? What content are they producing? How is their site structured? If they are successful there are tangible reasons that you should emulate on your new site.

3. Analytics, Analytics, Analytics
Before you launch – make sure you have web analytics software installed – whether it is Google Analyics, Clicky Analytics or something else. Just make sure it’s installed and working before you publicly launch your website. You need to track everything – from the beginning. This data will be extremely helpful later on in your web strategy lifecycle.

4. Develop your Workflow
Admittedly this is something we have learned the hard way. It’s hard to keep our website running well without a schedule. This is analogous to scheduled maintenance for your car.. If you don’t keep servicing your vehicle it will break down on you. An effective web strategy should have a scheduled workflow associated to it. If not – I guarantee you will never check your web analytics, produce regular content, or find time to participate in your community. Set aside time for your web strategy. Add it to your calendar. Trust me – this will make you more productive and allow you to keep a well-oiled website.

5. Seed your Site with Content
Don’t launch a website without content – and please, please, please, please don’t launch with a “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” image on your site. Nothing will deter future visitors more than being 100% underwhelmed on their first visit. Before you publicly announce your site be sure there is sufficient content to keep people there once you announce it. We recommend having at least five blog posts along with your traditional “about” and “contact us” content.

What do you recommend? Let us know in the comments