It’s a fair question, and if you’re designing your own website on Wix, Shopify, or Wordpress, it can be a question you’re asking yourself all the time.
When is my website done?
When can you finally say that you’re done building pages, cropping photos, adjusting white space and the speed that your carousels auto-progress? Here’s the answer that you don’t want to hear; it’s never done. Or really, it’s never “perfect”.
Here’s a few reasons why.
Your industry is changing and advancing. Your website should too.
Your industry is changing. What your clients are wanting and the services they are looking for are constantly evolving. If your business is keeping up with industry trends and standards, then your website should reflect that. As you continue to perfect your craft, refine your products and services, and develop, your website needs to communicate that to your target audience and your website visitors. Your website will never be “done”, because your company’s progress is never done. (Hopefully)
User insights and analytics should change your strategy.
As you design your site, or as you have your site designed, you are making some assumptions and generalizations during the process. Your design, structure, layout, and strategy should be influenced by your knowledge about your ideal client, target audience, their wants and needs, habits and behaviors, and past data. Your initial design and launch of your website should get you close to what your clients want, but the only way you will ever know how to make your website design better is by getting it in front of real users.
Running conversion rate analytics, user recordings, and heat maps on your website WILL change how you design and structure your website. Almost always there is surprising data or user behavior that can only be discovered by actually launching your website and getting real people to explore your site. And here’s the kicker, this is going to change too. As your clients’ wants and needs change, so will their experience with your website. Your website will never be “done” because you should constantly be adapting to what your current visitors are doing on your site.
You should be adopting new digital tools.
Your website and your marketing automations might seem top-of-the-line right now, but they might not be the best thing for you and your business in few years, maybe next year, or even next month. Periodic assessments and comparisons of your current digital tools and other newer alternatives should be a regular part of your digital marketing operations. As you continue to explore and adopt newer digital marketing tools to better serve your clients, your website should either a.) reflect those changes to your services and/or b.) integrate those improvements throughout the visitor experience on your site. Some examples:
- If you adopt a new digital booking or appointment software, you can embed that on your website for your clients to book a time with you more easily.
- When you change CRM platforms (customer relation management), you should update your forms and lead magnets on your site.
- Keeping your website up-to-date with ADA compliance and other accessibility laws requires occasional updates.
In short, don’t wait to get your website up.
Your website is never truly “done” in the sense that you’ll never have to touch it again. Your website needs your attention just as much as any other part of your business. If you are replacing an old website or starting from scratch, don’t postpone launching your website just because you don’t think it’s “done” or that you’re waiting for it to be “perfect”, because it never will be. You will make better design decisions based on analytics and industry trends and changes than you will by thinking about your design by yourself. Get your website up and evolve as you go.
Don’t know where to start? Schedule a time with one of our strategists to get you going in the right direction.
