Newsletter #167 What's Really Important in 2016?

Posted on Oct 15, 2019, 8:31 PM

 

At a recent networking meeting (BNI) I ran a survey. I drew up 10 items that I thought were important in a Website and I asked those present to rank them one to 10, one being the most important. Before the meeting I had ranked them so that after the votes were in I could compare the audience's responses with mine.

Now I've been in the Web industry a while (nearly 17 years), so how did my perception of what was important compare to the general public? In this case it was, in general, small business owners or those representing a small business.

You might argue about the 10 items but here they are in the order I gave out:

 

  • Calls to action
  • Search engine friendly
  • Easy to use, navigate
  • Mobile responsive
  • Aesthetically pleasing
  • Shows off company branding
  • Has a 'wow' factor
  • Great content
  • Easy to find company contacts
  • Professional looking

 

There was one major disagreement between myself and the audience, can you guess what it was?
 

Your Website ROI
 
At this time of year we often re-evaluate our business direction and priorities.  One important question to ask yourself is whether you are getting the ROI on your website.  If not, why not? We should talk!
 
Let me know if this is something you would like me to prioritise for you in January. Either contact me by return email or Coralee on coralee@netinsites.com.


Here's the results with the 10 factors ordered as by me with the audience averages alongside.

 

  1. Great content  - audience 5th
  2. Easy to use, navigate - 1st =
  3. Mobile responsive - 3rd
  4. Professional looking - 4th
  5. Search engine friendly - 1st =
  6. Calls to action - 8th
  7. Easy to find company contacts - 6th =
  8. Aesthetically pleasing - 9th =
  9. Has a ‘wow’ factor - 9th =
  10. Shows off company branding - 6th =

 

The big difference was that I thought 'great content' was no.1 whereas the audience thought search engine friendly was more important. My thinking is that 'content is king' and without decent content people won't stay on your Website long anyway no matter how well you've search engine optimised it. Do business owners undervalue content creation and how well information is put together? I think that's always been the case.

The other less obvious disparity is that I think company branding is relatively unimportant as long as there is no disconnect from the rest of company's media branding. Read Nobody Cares About Your Logo if you want another look at my thinking there.

What do you think is most important?




Best wishes
Alex Garden

PS We will be closed from midday on Thursday 24th December, back on Monday 18th January although will be available at times between those dates.

Posted 5 years ago 2 Minute(s) to read