Making Your Website Update a Success
Most businesses mess it up. These are a few tips for success.
J.D. Solomon, Inc. incorporated in December 2019 and opened its doors on January 2, 2020. We waited over 18 months to refresh the website. Most “experts” say that is too long. However, what we had — both the business and the website — were working well. We decided to leave well enough alone.
When we started the refresh in mid-2021, the operating context drove our decisions related to the update. What we had was working, our original professional web designer did a good job, and we continually received positive feedback on what we had. We also knew that there were several modifications to the website that we needed to do.
Understand the context. Make a written list of what is working. Use whatever form of analytics you have on the website, even if the analytics are limited, and map the trends with your recent business goals. Make a written list of what you wish to change from internal feedback and external. When completed, get an outside perspective from a couple of people you trust but who are not involved in the day-to-day aspects of what you do.
Stay with what works. New fads come and go. That includes website design, integration with different types of social media, contact tracking, and e-commerce. We use our website to validate our credibility when working with larger entities who often work with bigger businesses. It works. We avoid chasing shiny lures.
Optimize the Mobile View. Responsiveness is that first impression you have when you visit a website for the first time. Responsive websites detect a visitor’s screen size and tweak the spacing, font sizes, images, and content listing to fit dynamically. It enables businesses to avoid creating a new version for every mobile device. It has much to do with whether you like or dislike the site for our website visitors.
We knew from some mobile users over the first 18 months that we needed to work on mobile responsiveness. Mobile responsiveness was a major focus of the refresh effort and the place we started first. Improving it when any website is refreshed is a good practice because the mobile environment is constantly changing. However, most visitors will not notice that we did anything because it had been a selective problem.
Add some Different Visuals. This is an area where the refresh is most noticed. In our case, the coastal picture replaced the commercial site development picture (with the golf course) as the second major picture on the website. Both images are great so the change involves some nuance that most website visitors may miss. While we help clients with program development, JD Solomon Inc does very little with commercial development projects. However, we do a lot with municipalities (city on the left), the environment (wetlands on the right), water (river in the middle), and infrastructure (bridge in the center). As a North Carolina-based company, we do a lot of work in South Carolina and have a small office there, so having an SC-based picture (the aerial is of Beaufort, SC) also aligns better with our business.
We also substituted a couple more pictures on different pages but were sure to keep people, not just objects, in them. We also changed or modified the layout of several images on their pages, many to help with the mobile view.
Separating Insights and News. The original design focused on valuable content and less on internal company matters. In retrospect, we went too much to the value-added content side because we did get a lot of interest in how the firm was doing. We broke our original “Ask the Experts” tab into separate tabs for “Insights” and “News.” News is already a positive addition.
More content. The website’s primary purpose is to support credibility. To drive more content material, we separated the Insights tab into four sub-categories — Project Development, Asset Management, Facilitation, and Environmental. We also kept the old Ask the Experts material available but made it hidden in the main directory.
Refreshing our website has resulted in subtle changes that are not noticeable to the average visitor. We continually track the results with previous analytics and business performance. Updating a website does not have to be a significant ordeal as long as the context and goals are well established. Visit our website at www.jdsolomoninc.com.
