The adage that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression was coined long before the Internet, but when it comes to your website, it is especially true. Your website is your virtual front door, and it’s the first thing people see about your organization. You don’t want visitors to form a negative first impression of your website because you will be hard-pressed to entice them to make a return visit.
Whether your organization is putting together its first website or if you are looking to update or enhance your website functionality, there are some basic elements you can’t afford to overlook.
Nobody knows your organization better than you. Your website should reflect the goals of your organization and reflect what you want it to achieve. Is it going to have an e-commerce element that you use to sell products? Are you looking to promote a service? Are you simply after a platform to share your thoughts and ideas? Also, think about your target audience. Who is actually going to be using your site? Do you wish to provide self-service to improve services provided and also reduce your administrative burden? By defining this audience, whatever it may be, you can further tailor your website to appeal to the specific wants, needs, and interests of your demographic.
The answers to these questions will help you determine your next steps.
Your website design needs to make it easy for visitors to find what they want, so it is important to make sure it functions properly so that users can easily navigate their way around your site and find the content they are looking for. Visitors to your site will not jump through hoops to find something and will just leave if they get frustrated. Your site needs a straightforward, logical web structure with an easy, prominent navigation bar that will keep customers coming back.
Having a logical site structure is vital to an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, which will help drive more high-quality traffic to your site. SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content to increase search engine positioning. One way to do this is by creating a site map, or a structured list of every page in a hierarchical format. The search engine crawlers can then easily find all the pages on your website, which is a key to getting pages indexed. Indexed pages come up in search results when users type in a search query in Google or other search engines.
Your website should also be optimized for mobile use. Today, more than ever, people rely on their mobile devices to access the web and complete research. This means that you have to make sure your website will display nicely and seamlessly on smaller screens. Making this a priority shows you value your constituents and website visitors. It can also give you an advantage in search rankings because Google now uses a mobile-first indexing approach. This means Google will often use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.
Another important element for website success is your loading speed. Loading speeds have become increasingly important for web users. Customers rely on receiving information in the timeliest fashion possible, and they won’t wait around for your web page to load. Page load time is also a ranking factor, meaning that your SEO will be affected by slower loading speeds.
Research by Kissmetrics reveals that 40% of people abandon a site completely if it takes more than three seconds to load.
In order for your organization to control what is posted to your website and keep content fresh, a content management system (CMS) is a necessity. A CMS is a program that supports the creation and modification of digital content using a simple interface. A CMS helps internal users add, edit, and manage a website–often doing the heavy-lifting by providing an intuitive interface, permission-based editing options, previewing edits before publishing, and more.
A CMS is useful because:
Of course, a CMS won’t be any good if new, relevant content isn’t being developed. Whether in-house or contracted out, fresh content that is optimized for search engines is key to attracting customers. Once the content is created and published, it can be shared to social media accounts, other industry-relevant websites, and more.
Before jumping into a project like this, it is critical to understand what exactly your site is trying to accomplish, and what resources you’ll have at your disposal to help make sure that it’s a success. Also consider that building a website can require hundreds of hours of work as well as possibly hiring new employees to create and manage the infrastructure and day-to-day operations. Do you have the time and resources to go it alone?
If the answer is “no,” Christian Brothers Information Technology and Website Services (IT & Website Services) will collaborate with you to create a graphically stunning and easy to navigate website that's tailored to fit your needs. Whether you're looking to design a new website or update your current one, we are your leading resource in website design, development and hosting. We will ensure that you get exactly what you want in just the exact way that you want it.
We begin by working with you to define your website objectives, requirements, specifics and features so that a firm Statement of Work can be completed outlining what functionality will be included in your website. Once you approve the Statement of Work, the project begins!
Next, we will develop a flowchart of your website. The flowchart will contain the menu items as well as other navigational aspects of your site. After you provide us an outline or navigation to the site, we will build a wire frame of your site, similar to a live flowchart. If you do not know what you want to include on your site, we can work with you to develop it. We will then provide you with a design guide asking for further details and expectations of the look and feel of your site. We will use it to further develop your design and needed elements for your site.
Once the outline is complete, we start the design process. We start by designing a homepage and secondary page in graphical format. These designs are either sent via email or are placed in a reserved area on our web server, allowing you to review our work and make critiques. Once you are satisfied with the design, we will begin the coding and development of your site.
While we are developing the design of your site, you will need to put together all the text content that you want on every page. We will spell check your site, address reasonable security issues, confirm all navigation and links are active, test all forms and quality-check every item for accuracy and functionality. This includes checking the site across all current browsers for consistency. Once our testing is complete, we will make the site available to you, the customer, to quality-check. Once we have the final approval from you, we will make the site live to the public. Finally, our training and proficiency coordinator will train you in all aspects of your content management system. We have created Website Update Xpress as a customizable CMS, one which allows you to easily maintain the content of your website using any current web browser, with no need for third party software. It also eliminates the necessity of webmaster expertise. Using our CMS, a site administrator can also create new pages, add or remove menu subsection pages and redirect any page to any active web address or URL. Additionally, our CMS Image Manager functionality allows for the inclusion of images, PDF files, Word documents, and other web-friendly files to your organization’s website. Building or redesigning a website is a huge undertaking that can be daunting and overwhelming. By allowing professionals to do the heavy lifting of building the infrastructure, you can focus on your organization’s mission and enjoying your website visitors.
When the Diocese of Erie needed to upgrade its websites, Christian Brothers IT & Website Services was there to help with XpressIT Website Update Xpress and XpressIT Parish Place, a self-managed online service tool developed by Christian Brothers Services where Catholic parishes can administer and maintain their own website, affordably and without ads.
Find out how this diocese changed its look and how it helped to further its mission.
According to Fit Small Business, as of 2021, 71% of small businesses have a website, up from 50% in 2018.
