Out with the old, in with the new…
It’s a momentous day, because finally you‘ve made the decision to redesign your company website. Out goes the dated design, copy heavy and confused navigation in comes a new minimalist design, featuring embedded videos, integrated social media, animation and shopping cart. You hope the new site will increase sales and position your business as thought leaders at the forefront of your industry, penetrating new sectors of the market that previously were out of reach. In this brave new world your redesigned site will feature inspiring and compelling content designed to reach new audiences and generate much new needed new business, forcing competitors to sit up and take notice of what your company is doing.
The Royal Family
However, in a world where clarity is ‘king’, and effectiveness is ‘queen’, you are still uncertain over how to best portray your brand and you doubt you have the capacity in-house to produce all the content necessary for your social media channels and blog posts, as well as keeping on top of website updates. Sound familiar?
To help clients achieve the royal family of great communications, clarity and effectiveness, we encourage them to describe what they do in no more than eight words. This narrative, which will motivate you and inspire others, is designed to capture the essence of your business and portray what makes it ‘special’. One of the first narratives we created was ‘helping good people say important things’ while for a financial services client we produced, ‘creating financial choices for successful businesses’.
Going Upstream
There’s no dead cert formula for success in designing a new website but we would advise you to take time to paddle upstream and ask some key questions before embarking on the project. In return, it could save you time, money and heartache further down the line. More than anything your website is a communications tool that should be integrated and aligned with the company communications strategy to highlight the key aims and objectives that your website needs to deliver.
You should identify the key thing your website must deliver and make sure all content is designed to deliver that top priority. Recently, I was hired by a financial services provider to review their communications and overhaul the company website. Together we identified that the key outcome for the new site was to generate new enquiries for the consultancy side of the business. So out went whole sections of content designed to educate people about non-bank funding. These sections were interesting – if you liked that sort of thing – but of no future value given the new key outcome.
An hour to solve a problem
Albert Einstein, who knew nothing about website design but a fair bit about problem solving, said,
“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
Likewise, some time spent understanding problems with the previous site and how to overcome them, is time well spent.
Online communications are key to the success of any small business. The Coronavirus pandemic has shown this to be truer than ever before. A successful online communications strategy enables a small business to communicate clearly and concisely; reach target audiences cost effectively; respond quickly to emerging stories and tailor communications around individual needs.
Sydney Harris, an American journalist and author said,
“‘Information’ and ‘communication’ are often confused, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.”
A great website, carefully planned and designed to deliver strategic objectives, does more than simply give out company information. A great website gets through to the people and audiences you care about most and the ones that are critical to the success of your business.
How can we help?
We’re currently offering a free communications MOT with all new website projects, to ensure your website project gets off on the right foot — with clear and effective communication. Explore our website packages today.