It’s 2014. Is Your Website Updated?

As we here at Unimar prepare the launch of our new website, we thought we’d share why it’s important to keep your website updated.

Everyone wants a website that people visit daily. Think about where people usually bookmark their homepages. Their email, daily news websites, and so on. Why? Because these websites constantly have new information available to its audiences. The web in 2014 is all about fresh content. Very few businesses will be able to compete with the New York Times or Gmail, but the point still stands. Internet users expect websites to remain up to date and, in addition to that, user friendly, too. You want to give your online audience a reason to return. Clumsy web design, outdated graphics, and stale content won’t be a reason for return-visits to your site.

Here are some reasons why regular web maintenance is important:

It keeps visitors interested. Fresh material added regularly means that there is an incentive for users to keep coming back to your website. Whether visitors buy or not on the first visit isn’t your focus. It should be on repeat visits. New content, text, graphics and images help build traffic of repeat visitors and grows the potential for lifelong patrons.

Focusing on customer feedback. L.L. Bean has a great lifetime warranty on their products, and it encourages repeat patronage. Just because it’s the web, doesn’t mean you should shirk customer service. Find feedback on your website and respond to it. Don’t frustrate your users by ignoring what they need in a functioning website. You need them more than they need you. Remember that.

Maintain your Google rankings. Google pique your interest? The search engine gives higher rankings to websites that are updated regularly because they want to present the best quality content in their searches to their own users.

You want your website to operate at its peak performance. This requires an active involvement in its maintenance. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Is your website responsive? In the last couple of years, there have been more and more mobile users. If your website can’t accommodate a smart phone, then chances are you’re aggravating your consumers and spoiling a relationship with them. Technology is changing, design trends are coming and going. Be up to date on them as a way of being in touch with your existing and possible clients.

(A quick guide on being response: http://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design)

Are you reaching your goals? Our businesses change and their goals do, too. A website should reflect those goals. A change in company image, in services, prices—all should be reflected. Your website is a way of crafting and showing possible clients your identity as a company. Show them you thrive off active and engaged consumers and that you meticulously take care of your appearance. You care about yourself and by extension, you care about your users.

Is it hard to keep updated? If your website is hard to update, explore why. By making a website more easily maintained, you’ll be able to update on the fly and not have to do large overhaul of coding just to update small details. And as a side note, some experts recommend that you completely revamp the look of your site every three years.

Don’t get caught with a year past. It’s 2014 now. Your website shouldn’t be associated with 2012, so update your website and copyright statement in the footer. Websites that don’t appear modern signal to your clients that the information and the website itself isn’t as fresh as it could be. It suggests a lack of work ethic and might promote disinterest in your brand and product as a result.  But more importantly, by not keeping up to date, you could be missing out on a great layout and newly developed tools to help build your business, increase sales, and elevate your web presence.

And some last minutes considerations!

Craft your website to reflect your audience’s tendencies and behaviors. Readers on the web scan over information, so keep it simple and scan-able. To craft a website that reflects your audience, you’ll have to do some research. You need to know what they want and how to deliver it.

Does your company talk like its clients? If not, find a happy medium where the two styles overlap.

Remember in this modern web world, content is king and users want to feel active and engaged. You have to understand your clients and tailor your websites in a way that anticipates what they want so as to ensure repeat visitors and long term relationships.

Just get in the routine of updating your website. Schedule a time, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. It could be as simple as changing the wording or updating an image, but these small things can mean big rewards. 

The Client Isn't Always Right

"The Customer is Always Right." Anyone who has spent anytime in a client driven industry is familiar with the phrase. From grocery stores to marketing firms, when your business depends directly on the amount of customers and clients you get, this phrase is treated like the gospel. Unfortunately, anyone who has ever worked in client driven business also knows that the client usually has no idea what it is they want.

The whole reason why you hire a professional is because you don't have the knowledge to do it yourself. You might have ideas, you might have suggestions, but you don't have expertise. This is why you go to a doctor when you're sick, and when your doctor gives you medical advice, you follow it. An ideal client relationship works like a doctor-patient relationship. The client comes in with a problem, offers some suggestions of what the solution might be, but ultimately defers to the experience of the professional they hired.

In reality, the client comes in with suggestions or ideas that will not work, or won't work without heavy modification. You tell them this as politely and deferentially as possible, because after all, you can't afford to lose the client, offer some suggestions, and inevitably, your suggestions are rejected. If you followed the motto "the customer is always right", this is where you would back down, go with the client's ill advised idea, and then have to deal with the blow back when it doesn't work, or doesn't work well enough. The problem with the "client is always right" is that the customer comes to believe this as well. Obviously if things didn't work out the way they wanted, it's your fault for either not listening to them or, conversely, listening to them even though you knew it wouldn't work. As a professional, you can't win.

The solution? Acknowledge that the client isn't always right. Don't be afraid to state, clearly and decisively, why the client's idea, while interesting, will not work. Use examples of similar ideas that have failed. Provide one or two suggestions for alternatives,  and don't be afraid to emphasize the years of experience you have.

For example, if you have been tasked to design a flyer for a client and they want to put something on the flyer that just won't work - it's too strongly worded, the design is ugly, it's the sort of information that isn't meant to go on a flyer - explain to them why it won't work, and if (when) they ignore your suggestion, provide two examples. One with their suggestions, implemented exactly as is, poor wording, color scheme and all, and one the way you know from experience will work best. Present the two suggestions side by side, and 99% of the time, they'll pick the one you designed.

Most of the time if you let the client know in no uncertain terms that their suggestions are a bad idea, and provide alternatives, they will listen. Trying to turn a poor idea into an acceptable one is a waste of time and effort.  If the idea is salvageable, let it drop. The good thing about most clients is that they don't know what they want until they see it, so if you provide examples of what you know works, they'll find something they like and you can go from there.

For the 1% who persist in making poor design choices, there is quite literally nothing you can do. It comes down to whether you can afford to be associated with a poor design - if you pride yourself on the quality of your work, this might be the time to drop an ultimatum on the client, instead of the other way around. But usually, it doesn't come to that. Generally, when you firmly but gently tell a client "how about we try this instead", they'll go along with it.

Always listening to your client is a good way to churn out mediocre work. You will not, in fact, have a high rate of customer satisfaction. Ultimately, you and the client care about the same things - results. If you do everything a client wants, and it fails that is your fault. The client will very rarely if ever take responsibility. It's much smarter to make sure all your projects succeed, even if that means proving a customer wrong.

How do you deal with difficult customers? If you have any additional tips or suggestions, things that worked or didn't work for you, let us know in the comments, or by contacting us on twitter and facebook.