What should you do first?
Posted June 19th, 2009 by Fran Murdy
Hello:
What should come first? Should I redesign my website first before doing any anaytics, email marketing, blogging, etc, or doing it last?
Thanks.
Hello:
What should come first? Should I redesign my website first before doing any anaytics, email marketing, blogging, etc, or doing it last?
Thanks.
Who are you targeting?
Steve Early 36 weeks 2 days 11 hours 29 min ago
Fran:
I think you've gotten great advice on doing research first but one missing element unless I overlooked it is the perona of the individual(s) you are trying to reach with your inbound program. Developing a good understanding of the customer will do a lot to help you refine and focus your re-design to appeal to things they might like or would be looking for. It should drive some of your [H1] headline development and landing page design in my view -- just as a couple of examples.
What is your goal?
Adrian Chira 37 weeks 13 hours 17 min 40 sec ago
Hi Fran,
the answer is depending of the goal of the redesign. Most of us are redesigning the site in order to increase the conversion rates and finaly to increase our sales. If your goal is similar you should have some data about your site today, most probable from analytics and a target for your redesign (I want to increase visitors with x% in 3 months, I want to get on the first page of google for x and y keywords by the end of the year, I want to increase the conversion rate from x% to y% in the next 6 months). Thanbased on your target you should decide what actions you have to take in order to get you where you want to be.
Best regards,
Adrian
Like the others said,
Elizabeth S 37 weeks 3 days 6 hours 29 min ago
Like the others said, analytics first seems to be a good idea. Then do the web redesign before email or blogging - otherwise you're sending people to an outdated site.
Analytics first.
Simon Mason 37 weeks 3 days 17 hours 1 min ago
Hi Fran,
Lots of good advice here.
I would just add that you need at least to get some analytics done before you change anything - this will show you which of your existing pages have inbound links - you can then make sure you re-direct the urls of these pages properly when you do your redesign. Otherwise you could lose all the linkjuice you are already getting.
When you are ready to launch your new website you need to implement 301 re-directs on your existing urls to keep the search engines happy.
You should be able to do this via your webhost's control panel - there will normally be a redirects option - just fill in the blanks and chose either "permanent" or "301" for the type of redirect.
If you need any more help on this please feel free to give me a shout on twitter @simoncmason
Cheers
Simon
Data first - it drives the redesign
Mike Volpe 37 weeks 5 days 6 hours 2 min ago
The mistake many people make is to design or redesign a website without any data. I would recommend you get some basic data about your website and marketing programs before you make decisions without data. Using data to drive your decisions helps make sure you make better decisions and get more out of the time and money you spend.
Here is a free website redesign webinar that shows you a bunch of the different pieces of data to think about before laucnhing or redesigning a website.
Don't see any drawbacks to
Dave Lowe 37 weeks 5 days 19 hours 29 min ago
Don't see any drawbacks to starting analytics now, pre redesign. If anything it will be insightful to see exactly how the redesign affects everything.
What should you do first?
Michael Hartzell 37 weeks 6 days 2 hours 10 min ago
Fran,
First... go to http://thebrain.com and download the free mingmapping software. (they have online classes every week and are of the caliber of service of hubspot)
Then.. goals, thoughts and organize visually. (I love having two brains so I don't have to rely on the older one so much) :)
The answer to your question depends on where you are, your skill, the resources and your short term & long term objectives.
In all cases ... no matter what, connecting with people to listen, learn, gather contact info is a must.
Before you build your site or blog... you will need to do the research to know your customer and their language / buzzwords.
I work a lot with offline companies.. so their objectives / priorities / timelines.
For many it might be good for them to:
----- Connect with people, gather contact info. (email, twitter, social media, collaborations, forums, blogs, news, landing page, etc) (even youtube might an alternative for many)
----- Analyze & research keywords, language, needs, pain, hungers...
I would bet out of that you will begin to form an idea of which is priority (blog or website) and how to desgin and what content will be a priority.
Mike
PS
Fran, Would love to know how you do! Connect with me on twtter ar http://twitter.com/michaelhartzell
research befor pulling the trigger
Greg Torgerson 37 weeks 4 days 4 hours 23 min ago
Mike, prudent advice. nothing could be worse the moving forward with a "ready, fire, aim" approcah. We have launced and undressed network blog in my home town of Lake Stevens WA. and were able to index past 1.1 M google pages by following a proven platform with rich relavent content. It was proven and time tested platform which I take no credit for it. Now that we are launching a new marketing website form basicly sratch, we will slow down, gather the facts before pulling the trigger. I will take your advice and do some "brain mapping" Thanks again.
I would appreciate any feedback positive or negative on my community blog at http://www.lakestevensundressed.com