Regular Communications Equal A Winning Website
Building a website is an obviously crucial marketing step for any company. Much too often, once the website is launched, many small businesses seem to drop communications with their web developer they hired. After the website is up and running, ongoing communications between the company and developer remain crucial for many reasons. New business goals, changes in the company, and industry trends are all things that a small business should communicate with their web designer on a regular basis.
New Business Goals and Services
Rarely does a successful business keep the same goals year after year. Whether sales goals or employee retention goals, all of those goals should be clearly communicated to your web developer on a fairly regular basis. The reason for this is pretty simple – the website, being a likely first place that many of your customers might find you, should be updated to work toward whatever goals are in place.
Similarly, businesses often from time to time roll out new services or product offerings. Again for the same reason of the website being the first place so many customers will find a business, the website should include all of that information. Even things like simple updates to what all might be included in a product of service offering should be updated regularly on the website. Those inclusions could be a great selling point for why someone might want to work with your business.
Company and Industry Changes
Just like news goals get set up and offering can change, there are likely company and industry changes that come up throughout the year. Too often I’ve seen businesses move into a new physical location, but still list the old location on their website. By doing this, they’re not only potentially pushing countless customers and leads to the old location, but they are not providing accurate information which Google is not a fan of.
We recently had a phone call with one of our clients who kept referring to a person I wasn’t familiar with. After a few times I asked who this person was. My clients responded and said “oh, he’s the new part owner in the company.” For that client they had all of their team members listed on the website, but the new owner was not.
For many business industries, there are changes that happen from time to time. While I stay on top of the web design industry, I can’t stay on top of each industry we work with. Without these ongoing conversations, we wouldn’t know when phrasings or terminology changes might take place. Each of those changes will likely need to be reflected on a business website.
Business Hurdles and Obstacles
It would be great if businesses faced nothing but smooth sailing and calm seas ahead. Like anyone else, businesses are often faced with various hurdles and obstacles that come before them. When these issues come up, there may be adjustments needed on the website. For example, several years ago a client’s store was located on a road that was going through a major construction project. For the entire summer the driveway in and out of the store’s parking lot would be impacted. To help minimize this impact to the businesses, we set up a section on their website outlining when certain parts of the construction would be happening and what customers could do to best avoid the issues but still get to the store.
We’ve also had clients reach out to us to mention that their sales had suddenly dropped off. In those instances we can look into the site and see if there are any parts that might not be functioning ideally or ways we can improve the buying process. A couple of times, we have found that clients simply had too complicated of a contact form that inhibited possible clients from getting in touch with them.
Without having regular conversations with clients, these issues and obstacles that clients were facing could have been left unresolved. Instead we were able to quickly dive in and work to find solutions to at least partially work around or solve the issues they were facing in those moments.
On Going Communications are Key to Success
Without fairly regular check-ins and conversations, there’s no great way for a web design company to keep up on all that is going on with their clients. Therefore, the need for regular communication is so needed. Ongoing communication helps to ensure that the website continues to meet the company’s evolving needs, remains secure, and stays competitive in the online landscape. It also provides an opportunity to proactively address any issues before they impact the user experience or business operations.