While I can’t point to the URL, I will tell you what I discovered and how this may apply to you and your business. We will examine Design, Content & Security.
Their website looks like something we were building in the mid to late 90s, or as I like to say the early days of the web. The amazing thing is that this organization serves tens of thousands of members and is collecting huge fees (which isn’t going to their technology 😉 ).
The website was not responsively designed, and therefore looks terrible on mobile devices and even pads. The website screamed, I don’t care what anyone thinks, and I don’t even care if anyone uses this site. It was a disgrace and so out of date from a technology standpoint, using outdated platform like cold fusion. (who knew that was still around…)
As with most sites built in the 90s, it is very boxy with gradients and a logo which is using beveling, a drop shadow, a glow and other outdated design elements. The site is easy to navigate with a simple main menu, which most time would be a real benefit. Unfortunately as most of the content is out of date you just easily navigate to outdated and in many cases irrelevant information. The biggest design no no is the fact that a site doesn’t function on mobile devices. This is a disgrace in 2020.
From a content standpoint, most information was 5+ years old, though they had a few new links to articles. I took a look at their photo gallery they had photos from 2007 – 2010 which shows you they aren’t adding too many pictures. Their video gallery was just as bad with the latest videos being from 2013. Their call to action it’s a video to entice you to join which dates back to 2011!! So from a content, and SEO standpoint, the site fails miserably.
Although this site has people sign up on it, the site is not secure and pages are not encrypted. This of course is a real no-no in 2020. But this site seems to not only have an outdated design, they seem to be using security measures from the 90s, basically none at all!
This site is terrible, and has a look and feel from the 90s. I don’t think anyone viewing the site would argue my point. The saddest part is it wouldn’t take very much to get this website in shape. You could do a redesign and throw the content into a content management system with a stylish, responsive theme. I would review and remove outdated content and advise they get onto a schedule of adding more current, relevant information to their website.
If you look at your website and it looks terribly out of date and at very least it isn’t mobile friendly, it is time for you to make a change, quickly! Well over 50% of the people visiting your website will be on mobile devices, so if your site is a mobile friendly you will lose them, and lose them fast. The same goes with your content. If you have content that is old and stale, you have a problem. If someone comes to your site and see this, chances are they think that either of you are out of business or you’re just not very good at what you do. Outdated content shows a severe lack of pride. Remember: Your website is your window to the world and outdated site says to people, you don’t care if they look inside.
So, like everything else I am always drawn back to ideas for my business, designing and maintaining websites. (I know, only a geek would be constantly thinking about web stuff. I am what I am)
But I had some ideas looking at this old truck. Many websites (like the truck), don’t need to be scrapped, but they do need some sprucing up.
So here are five ways you can do that:
By changing your logo, even a little bit, you can really make a statement. I feel that every design should start with the logo as that is the key to your branding, color scheme, etc. Over the last decade, more and ways to design logos have sprung up, so for very little money you can have a great logo.
Years ago you would go to an agency to create your logo. They would spend time and asking questions and finally come up with three possibilities to choose from, which they charge you 15, or $20,000 or more. Contact me, I will show you how to have a great logo at an affordable price. (And you’ll have many options to choose from)
Is your site filled with tacky stock photos, like the operator wearing the headset (see below) or a number of the other photos you’ve seen on a million websites? If so, consider updating the images on your website. The best photos are the ones of you and your company and your business. You can either take the photos yourself or hire a professional photographer to come in and spend a couple hours. It isn’t that expensive and the results can make a huge difference in the look and feel of your website. If must use stock photography, do it in such a way that it doesn’t have that stock-ish look. So use images that are a bit abstract, something eye-catching, but not the two guys shaking hands. (One of my pet peeves)
This Photo is on 100s of sites (if not 1,000s) and example of overused Stock Photos.
Video is a great way to add value to your website. The numbers prove that people will watch a video, more then they will read pages of text. The best part is that you can take a video yourself; it doesn’t have to be professionally produced, although of course that is a good option as well. Videos are also great to promote on social media, as people are more likely to click on a link to your blog with an embedded video than just a plain text article.
Consider these numbers from HubSpot:
1) Mobile video usage has increased by nearly 10 million daily viewing minutes in the last 2 years.
2)
Video is important, as these numbers prove. #3 is one to consider if you are looking for ideas. People love “how to” videos. So if you can produce a video that solves someone issue, chances are you will get plenty of views, and who knows, perhaps a viral video.
One thing a lot of people don’t think about when designing or working on their website is typography. Simple changes to a font as an example can make such a big difference. I was looking at a potential new client’s website the other day. Well, what hit me was they were using the smallest font sizes, and it made it hard to read. Their headline fonts were using this very fancy font-face that was difficult to make out. So, by just bumping up their body font a couple of pixels and changing their headline fonts to something far more readable, their site looked hundred times better. Because we now have Google fonts and other embedded fonts available, people have gone crazy trying to use nonstandard font families. For me, when we are talking about body fonts, the cleanest, easiest to read fonts have always been and always will be the best to use. Now, don’t get me wrong I like fancy fonts for headlines, you just don’t want to go to crazy and end up using something that people have a hard time reading. And remember, over half of your audience is probably on cell phones which makes goes small and fancy fonts very hard to read.
When you go to a website and someone has a contact form with 10 or 15 fields, chances are you don’t fill those out. So my number five tip is to simplify those forms. You want people to contact you or request more information, so collect as little information as possible. Someone’s name, phone Number and perhaps a text area for them to tell you what they need or are interested in. In this day and age people are afraid to fill out forms as they’re so scared with what company may do with the data. So by simplifying your forms hopefully you will get a better response. As most people will tell you the amount of forms filled out has declined considerably over the last five years, so make it as easy as possible for your website visitors.
So like that beautiful old truck seen above, you don’t have to scrap your website, you can make changes to spruce it up and get it looking good again. This of course is only five tips, there are obviously many things you can spruce up your website. We would be happy To help you, contact us anytime.
If you have some tips of your own, please leave them below, we always welcome comments and the opinions of others.
