Is your website designed like it’s still 2006?
We did our first “What’s Hot and What’s Not” list for effective websites in 2006. And we updated the list in 2012, 2016, 2018, 2019, and now in 2023.
What’s changed since 2006 in terms of getting websites right?
Seems that many websites still struggle with the same issues. See how your website stacks up below.
Unique, relevant, memorable brand promise on Home
In 2006, most companies didn’t yet see the website as the centerpiece of their marketing efforts. If you incorporated your company’s look and feel into your website, you were doing okay.
Fast forward to 2023 — and getting the brand promise clear in COPY still has a way to go. We still see the brand promise “hidden.” On some websites, you can only find it on the About Us page. What if your visitors never go to that page?
On other websites, the brand promise only appears on Home – like the company assumes every visitor will start there. But we’ve seen that anywhere from 50%-70% of traffic can start on Home. How do the other 30% – 50% of your visitors learn “why they should buy yours”?
Your brand promise needs to:
- Be introduced on Home in headlines and subheads
- Appear on every product and service page
- Be woven into every blog post and lead generation page
ACTION ITEM: Review your Home page. Is there a clear brand promise in answer to “why should I buy yours”? Does that message appear throughout your website — on virtually every page, because every page could be a landing page?
What’s the prominence or order of messages on each page?
In 2006, a lot of websites weren’t focused on getting a response:
- Key actions weren’t high up on the page, “above the fold” as we used to talk about before mobile phones took over.
Many website Home pages seemed to be poorly thought-out, like the webmaster was just blindly adding every new request to “get this on the Home page.”
But that’s a marketing problem, not a web design issue per se.
You can’t assume your website designer knows which messages and elements should get priority, especially as content changes.
Over time as new products and promotions are added, and messaging is modified, your page layouts can become a little disorganized.
Marketers – time to get more involved, especially in the order in which messages appear on Home — and deciding which messages really need to be there.
ACTION ITEM: Review each page in terms of which messages should take prominence. List the key points on each page in their order of prominence. Do those key points appear in that order in your Headlines and Subheads?
Does your website still suffer from “paragraph-itis”?
In 2006, many websites had basic problems, like:
- Headline and lead paragraph on each page weren’t drawing the visitor in
- The copy (mostly a page of paragraphs) didn’t look easy to get through
- The writing wasn’t scannable (as subheads were nowhere to be found)
- The copy was bloated — every word wasn’t there for a good reason
But . . . in 2023, we still see websites with:
- Boring headlines like “Solutions”
- Lead paragraphs that aren’t compelling
- Lots of big hulking paragraphs that aren’t inviting
- Few subheads, bullet points, and other stand-outs for the scanning reader
- Bloated copy – where you could remove entire sentences and not remove anything needed for the sell (or to tell the visitor something useful)
ACTION ITEM: Do your pages look inviting — or are they paragraph after paragraph? Do your headlines and lead paragraphs draw your visitors in? If you read just your headlines and subheads, do you learn all of the key messages on each page? Is every word there for a reason?
The age of the “SEO Copywriter” hadn’t yet blossomed
In 2006, everyone was learning about SEO. But few were using “SEO copywriters” – or at least having the copywriter be the final eyes on visible copy, as well as Page Title and Description for search engines.
Sadly, in 2023, although everyone knows the importance of SEO, too many companies don’t really know how effective their SEO is. Many companies assume that SEO was “done” on their website, maybe when the site was built. But no one is keeping an eye on Organic traffic and results in Google Search Console, to get a basic idea if the SEO is actually effective. Too many times, we’re finding that key SEO elements are completely missing.
- Did you have your site re-designed, and just assumed the SEO elements would carry over? Unless someone crafted new Page Titles and Descriptions, those fields could be blank. Or if your WordPress site is using an SEO plug-in, your Titles are likely not optimized the way they should be.
ACTION ITEM: Start reviewing your Organic traffic monthly. Are you seeing a steady increase in traffic over time? Do you see more non-branded terms (those without your company or product names) driving traffic over time? Ask an SEO consultant to spider your site so you can see what Page Titles and Descriptions have been (or haven’t been) loaded.
Buyer Personas driving everything in 2023
In 2023, websites should be driven by your Buyer Personas:
- Navigation created by answering key questions of your Buyer Personas
- Content then created for each Buyer Persona
And that navigation then highlights your key content.
Where websites in 2006 may have been the purview of designers or programmers, websites in 2023 can be much more effective when there’s a strategy behind everything.
ACTION ITEM: Does your Main Menu instantly tell each type of visitor where to find the answer to their most important questions? Do you have Content that addresses the key questions of each type of visitor?
How did your website stack up in each of these areas?
Here’s our complete “what’s hot, what’s not” list for 2023 . . .
Download our latest Web Site Rehab special report with 12 action items to improve your website
Excerpted from our Amazon bestseller, The Results Obsession: ROI-Focused Digital Strategies to Transform Your Marketing.
- Includes chapters on Crafting Buyer Personas, Creating Effective Website Navigation, Web Design and Content, Website Copy, SEO, and more.
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