Tweaking your website
NO! I did not say twerking your site! Focus people!
Recently I did a series on the process of moving to a newly redesigned site. Many times though, your website doesn’t need a redesign, you just need to make some small changes.
In my mind, site changes fall into three categories:
- Minor editorial changes – When your site just needs language changes.
- Site tweaks – You want to make changes to your site but still need external help. This typically involves changes to the navigation or the addition of new functionality to your existing structure.
- Full redesign – You are rethinking everything.
In this post, we are going to deal with the second of these categories. You aren’t just changing the hours your store is open but you also aren’t starting over from scratch.
I love when my clients make these kinds of changes. It means that they are thinking about ways to improve their website in strategic and interesting ways.
Some tips for you as you work with your web person (or perhaps me) to make site tweaks:
- Clarity – Be clear before you start on what you are trying to accomplish. With a redesign it is sometimes easier to figure out goals than with a site tweak. Often I find clients want a change but they aren’t clear on what is broken or why. Know what you are fixing.
- Navigation – Where I see tweaks going awry most often is navigation. The customer wants to add a section but hasn’t thought about where it fits in her current navigation so she says something like “let’s just put it under the about section.” Now all of a sudden, her carefully thought out navigation has been muddied. Do that more than once and the site becomes a patchwork. It is imperative to think through the navigation as part of the project.
- Cascading effects – You know what sucks? Unintended consequences. It is pretty easy to do that accidentally when you make changes to your site. They usually show up in broken links (find out more about creating good 404 pages) or theme breaks. Make sure you work with your web person to figure out what could go wrong with your changes.
- Anything else – As long as you are going under the hood of your site, you might as well make a few changes. It will typically be a bit less expensive and less bother for you to do a few things at once. So, what else needs to be done?
Ready to do some site tweaks? Did you know Spring Insight offers a “spring cleaning” product? Let’s talk.