Aplus.net Blog

It’s no secret: One of the most difficult parts of running a successful online business is making sure your website is not only professional and modern, but also as user-friendly as possible.

Just what design factor is most important depends on what you’re selling. If your business is such that it can’t actually be sold online (such as car repair or construction), then your site is more of an advertising tool. Therefore, it should be simple, and it’s probably more important to make it look good than spend a lot of time on navigation.

But if what you’re selling can be purchased online — which is almost everything else, from books to flowers to pizza — then you want to make sure your site is very easy to navigate, and that customers have no difficulty finding exactly what they want.

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It requires updating: Internet standards are constantly changing, and what was considered a good design or navigation in 2005 doesn’t always hold up three years down the road. So, you have to make sure you’re staying ahead of the curve. (Unless you’d prefer the competition to fill that role … )

Web design expert Kevin Potts, interviewed in Inc.com late last year, made it very clear: “A website is like any piece of marketing — it has to be kept fresh. A lot of companies think that once they’ve built their website it’s done. And the reality is that’s just not the case.”

“A lot of websites just lose sight of the customer or audience,” Mr. Potts adds. “A lot of them bury the information, or they make the navigation confusing. It’s a lot of little things: Does the logo go back to the homepage? Is the main navigation even on the homepage?”

So is your website fresh? Are you making sure it’s updated regularly to reflect your customers’ needs? Are you confident that an outdated design isn’t driving away the very customers you’re trying so hard to win over?

Take the time to look at your website as a consumer would. It’s not all that easy to do, but make an effort to see it with fresh eyes. Now, try to find a contact phone number. Or a shopping cart. Does it make sense? Is everything in its right place? Does it look like a 2008 website, or a 2001 website?

Keeping your design fresh is no small task. At Aplus.Net we’ve dedicated a huge part of our workforce to perform this service (click here to check out WebImage). But no matter who’s providing the service, it’s worth your time to check out your design regularly and make sure it’s keeping up with the Internet’s always-changing standards.

After all, if you don’t — who will?