How to tell if your website is working for you - Part I

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?
Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What is your website's purpose? Informational, sales, customer serivce, blog and so on.

2. Is Your Website Focused?
Too many businesses both large and small use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything you do, everything you've done, and everything you ever thought of doing. This won't work. Your website should be focused on a singular function.  How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?
Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn't have to drill-down too deep to find what you're looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool.  How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website's Construction Balance Competing Concerns?
Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffic numbers?  Does your website's design reflect your sites' defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?
Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not sales. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

At Sierra Pacific Marketing - a Fresno website design company, we walk you through all these steps to insure that your website is working for you.