Is Your Website Outdated?
Submitted by Brian Bearden, Zephyr Salvo Studios
713-481-3321 / 832-594-5390 / www.zSalvo.com / brian@zsalvo.com
How to tell your website is outdated and needs to be redesigned:
Your company has changed - This is the one that I see all the time. Your company has grown; you added new product lines, people, services that are currently not on your website.
Your target market/customers have changed - when you first put up your website you were going after a different target market or customer base. Ask yourself who your perfect customer is and then look to see if your website is addressing this type of client.
Website Counter – how many people visited the site. Who cares? Google analytics will provide you with more information than you can handle and it’s a free service.
Blinking Text – used to be cool ten years ago.
Music - a lot of web surfing is done at the office on company time. The last thing someone wants to do at work is pull up a website that has music and have the music start as soon as the site launches. It is not only distracting but they don’t want to get caught so they will leave your site even before they can Name That Tune.
FLASH Introduction – If you still have a FLASH introduction that people see before they enter your website, I can almost guarantee that 99% of the visitors to your site are hitting the skip intro button. Don’t have a skip intro button? They are leaving your site.
How would you like to view this site - 56Kbps? 128Kbps? Flash? HTML? High speed or Low speed version? Just give them the content that is what they are after.
Favorite Links button – come on you remember when websites used to have Favorite Links, Favorite Resources, Jokes, etc. Some sites still have these on there. People don’t have the time to see what you like, they are on your site for a purpose.
Front Page Designed Website – used to be one of the top programs for designing websites. Now most hosting companies will not host Front Page Designed websites. You could only do so much design in Front Page and most Front Page websites looked the same.
Want your website reviewed on air? Call Tuesday at 3pm and I would be glad to help you. Don’t want to air your dirty laundry. Email me at brian@zsalvo.com or call me at 832-594-5390 and I will be glad to talk with you about your site off air.
Check next week's article for more info on how I critique a website. If you want a free website critique, call 713-783-8365 on Tuesday @ 3pm for a free on air website critique or email me at brian@zsalvo.com.
About Our Show Expert: Brian Bearden is a Director and website redesign guy of Zephyr Salvo Studios. He has a true passion for the web and is glad to share is advice for making your website the best it can be. Visit www.zsalvo.com or www.upstreammarketing.net to see a sample of his design portfolio or call 832-594-5390 to schedule your free website consultation.
