Why Your Website Will Always Be Under Construction

I sometime refer to websites as “living documents.” What I mean is a website should have the ability to grow and evolve over time.

Most people and companies evolve and change over time. Likes and dislikes change, products and services change, etc. Change is a good thing, right? Without change things become stagnant and no longer meet our needs. They end up becoming like that friend we all have who refuses to change with the times; the guy with the mullet, the girl with the 80’s perm, or worse yet, the 70’s feathered hairstyle. Remember “pegging” your jeans? Bad, bad images! Change is good. Not changing can be, well, ugly, or at best, less than fashionable! 

Change is a good thing

Your website is similar. For those just starting out on the web, there will inevitably be a period of adjustment and growth where you strive to find the best method(s) to communicate your message and/or best serve your clients. Your website may change several times during this time period.

During your internet travels, you’ve probably run across a website that says “Please excuse the mess. This site is currently under construction.” Now I don’t advocate that practice, though I will admit to being guilty of it in the past. I don’t think you should “go live” until your website is finished. Again, I’ll raise my hand and admit to being guilty of this in the past too. Learn from my mistakes folks, I certainly have!

Eventually, there comes a point where your website is “done” and even though you may have some additional ideas might want to implement in the future, it’s as “done” as it is going to get right now.

As a musician and songwriter, I have worked and reworked songs to death. At some point you have to say it is as good as it can get for the moment. You may have additional ideas later, you may improve your writing techniques later, or you may come up with a brilliant idea that revolutionizes you whole website. Regardless, you can’t wait for then to come. Get it out there and continue to improve as you go.

As I have said in other articles, I’m a huge fan of research and planning. If you did your research, made a plan for the website’s creation and a plan for its growth after going live, chances are your website will grow with you and accommodate you future needs. This one of the beautiful things about content management systems like WordPress (and some other web design and development applications too), they can grow with you.

Let’s say you decided at first you just want a simple, basic website; a home page, an about page and a contact page. You’re pretty sure you want to add a blog at sometime, or a way to post articles. Any of the big three Content Management Systems (WordPress, Joomla and Drupal) will grow with you. Want a new look for your website without affecting your content? Most CMS applications have themes or templates that can totally change your website’s look without affecting your content (other web design applications have similar features as well).

I truly believe a website is always “under construction.” It will probably never be done. Many times web design is a never ending project!

So what’s my point? Plan your website, try and anticipate your future needs and choose your website creation software to meet those needs. Realize that nothing is really ever finished, but there comes a point when it is time to go live and if you’ve done your homework, you’ll be able to fulfill your future needs as well as you’ve fulfilled you current ones.

Developing Useful Web Content

One of the things I often preach when writing for the web is the importance of developing helpful, valuable, or interesting website content for your audience. I realize the definition of what constitutes helpful, valuable, or interesting is open to interpretation, but if you develop content with the intention of making it so, you’re at least heading in the right direction.

What is helpful, valuable, or interesting content? Let’s say you’re an avid fisherman. You’ve been fishing for years and you know a lot about fishing. You know a lot about rods, reels, bait, types of fish and fishing areas and you decide you want to create a website or blog about fishing. Now what? 

Think like a visitor to your website.

What would you want to see? Maybe you want to know what type of gear and bait other fisherman use. Maybe you’re interested in fishing for a type of fish you’ve never caught before, so you want to do some research. Maybe you’re a fisherman on the east coast and you want to know about fishing on the west coast, or vice versa.

Thinking like a visitor puts you in your audience’s position and increase your chances of connecting with them. Chances are if you are passionate and knowledgeable about your topic, you’ll have no problem coming up with ideas, and you’ll deliver them in a way that makes them useful (maybe even interesting too!).

Even if your visitors already know some, or even most of the stuff you discuss, but you deliver it with conviction, you’ll probably still draw traffic to your website. Many times like-minded people will be drawn to a topic just on the chance they might learn something new, or to validate their own opinions and views.

Sounds great, but why?

With the increased traffic, your website now becomes a great place to sell that book, e-book or other topic related product you’ve always wanted to develop.

But it does not have to be about selling something. Maybe you’ve always wanted to be a fishing guide, or fishing consultant and your website provides a great way for you to showcase your subject matter expertise. Maybe it really comes down to you just love fishing and you want to swap stories and techniques with others who are as passionate as you.

Think of the reasons you return to your favorite websites again and again. It is usually for the content.

Search engines love content-rich sites.

The more topic specific content your website contains may also have a positive effect on your website’s search engine rankings. Now some of you may be saying, “I’m doing this for the love of my topic, not to increase my search engine rankings.”

I’m with you, but if you really love your topic, you probably want to share it with as many people as possible right? The more people that are able to find you (usually through search engines) the better for your topic right?

So what do you do with this content? How do you present it, and where should it go on your site?

I used to think that you had to have a blog, but to be honest, it could go anywhere. Since I’m a big fan of organization (imagine that, a former Marine who likes organization!), it could go in a blog (by the way even if you are using blogging software, the page does not have to be called “blog”), a tips, or articles section.

Be creative. Maybe you have a section titled “Catch Bigger Fish” if your articles focus on how to catch fish, or “The One That Got Away” where you talk about all those fish you almost caught. The possibilities are endless.

Final thoughts

Developing useful web content is simply the right thing to do. Maybe no one will like it. Maybe no one will get it, but chances are if it’s delivered passionately, your authenticity will shine through.

So, have fun creating your website’s content, be genuine and always keep your audience in mind.

5 Web Design Myths

Myth 1: If you build it, they will come

If you simply build a website and nothing else, there’s a good chance no one will ever find your website, (unless you or your product are already a household name).

Building a website and going live is a small part of the equation. The real work (search engine optimization, promotion, audience engagement, etc) begins after you go live, and is a never ending, continuous, daily (?) activity. 

Myth 2: Your website belongs to you, or your business

You may own the domain name, pay for the hosting and own the intellectual content, but your website belongs to your audience.

What I’m getting at is your website is for your audience; your visitors, your customers and your clients. Make your website useful to them, and in my opinion, you will greatly increase your chances for success. A business is nothing without its customers. A website is nothing without its audience.

Myth 3: A website will increase you business, your notoriety, or some other similar benefit.

See if you build it they will come.

The sole act of having a website will more than likely do nothing for you or your business unless you thoughtfully and carefully develop a plan for its creation, design and implementation.

Myth 4: If you hire a web designer, they will take care of all your website’s needs.

In many cases a web designer is simply that-a web designer. They will design a website for you, but most do not develop content; your website’s text, choose graphics, images, or implement a search engine optimization plan. If they do, it is at an additional cost. My advice-hire a web partner not just a designer.

Myth 5: In order to get your website noticed and attract visitors, customers, or clients, you need a website built with the latest and greatest design trends, stuffed full of graphics, images, movies and every other bell and whistle you can possibly jam into it.

The most important element of a website is the content (the website’s information). A website should be visually appealing, but not at the expense of its content. There should be a balance between text and graphics.

A lot of “stuff” can also have a negative impact on your website. It can affect how fast your website loads in a web browser and its performance in search engines.

Myth 6: (Yeah, I know I said five in the title, but think of this as a bonus! Plus, I don’t know if this is really a myth-more like a tasty nugget of information!)

If my website looks good on my computer, it will look good on every computer. Or web browsers-not all are created equal, and technology-it’s a continuous game of catch up.

Web Browsers

Sometimes I’m surprised to find that many people do not know there is more than one web browser available to them. Granted, most people are PC users and use Internet Explorer because it is the default web browser, but many web surfers also use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari (the default Macintosh web browser) and Opera.

The way a website looks in Firefox, may be radically different than in Internet Explorer because of the way the browser interprets the website’s code. Yes folks, your website could look incredible in Safari, but horrible in Internet Explorer. This is not generally a problem since any designer worth his (or her) salt will make sure their designs look good in all browsers.

Technology

Just because you have the latest, greatest and fastest computer equipped with a huge, high-definition monitor, a fast processor and unlimited memory, and a lightning fast internet connection does not mean all your visitors do.

When I left the Marines in 2007, most installations were still running Windows 2000 on computers with Pentium 4 processors and about 512mb of ram-very antiquated system by today’s standards (and even by 2007 standards). Hard to believe, but many users are years behind technology. I’ve even heard rumors that some people are still on dial-up internet connections!

Moral of the story-make sure your web designer designs for multiple browsers and make sure you view your website with multiple browsers and on multiple computers, and always make your visitor’s experience the priority.