Your Website Will Never Be Finished (But That’s A Good Thing)

Your Website Will Never Be Finished (But That’s A Good Thing)

There’s one thing all marketers can relate to. Whether you’re a writer, designer, developer, manager or the CMO, you know that our industry is driven by deadlines.

Deadlines and the pressure they create can be a very good thing. Without deadlines, creative teams can spin endlessly in exploration. Deadlines force people to make decisions.

With websites, the meaning of a deadline shifts. A deadline for a website applies to its initial development phase, but not to the completion of the website itself. Because in today’s world, effective websites are never done.

In the past, websites have been viewed as digital versions of printed sales materials: static pieces that companies rarely update. Many companies simply create websites to say they have one. It’s just a box to check on their list of marketing materials.

Today, companies need to look at websites as the central hub for all of their activity, and use them as publishing platforms for their brands. When a website publishes fresh content on a regular basis, marketing becomes more effective overall.

If you haven’t noticed, everything is happening online.

The web is the primary source of information for the world. It’s the most accessible representation of your business to your customers, and it’s the first place people look when they need information. Your website should not only be well designed and beautiful, it should show people that your company is alive and well. What companies do online shapes the perception of what they’re doing offline.

Give people a reason to come back.

Think about the websites you visit everyday. They probably fit into one of two categories: useful or entertaining. If a customer visits your website, and you never provide new information or entertainment, why would they come back? They’ve seen everything you have to offer.

Give them a reason to return to your site – besides your phone number.

The web is no longer a function of the IT department.

The worst thing you can do for your company is to build a new website, but lock yourself out of it.

If you can’t update your website without the help if an IT department or an agency, there’s something wrong.

These days, content management systems like WordPress make websites easy to manage, without any knowledge of HTML, CSS or JavaScript. With these tools, the focus is on the content, not the code.

Marketing is trendy and disposable.

Even if you just launched a new website today, you’ll want a new one two years from now. Technology and design are moving so fast that even the most innovative websites can only capture a specific moment in time, reflecting only what’s exciting today. Tomorrow, the internet will be on to something new.

Is that depressing? Only if you let your website sit still long enough to become obsolete. Design will change, technology will change, but messaging and content last and are transferable.