Maybe you’ve heard some of the feedback, possibly whispered in the more dimly-lit corners of those industry networking meetings…

“Have you seen XYZco’s website? …it looks like it was done way back when Netscape went public!”
“Yeah, I went to their site… what I saw didn’t read anything like what I thought they were about.”
“I thought it was funny that their Events page invited me to ‘See us at HealthFair 2005’ …until I got to wondering whether they might be going out of business.”

Mostly, though, even your best friends won’t tell you how bad your website has become;  you kind of have to figure it out for yourself.  It’s really not all that difficult, though:  you can get feedback from a small focus group;  you can look at your log files and note the high percentage of quick exits;  or you can simply put yourself in the place of a good prospect visiting your site for the first time, and ask yourself how the site would impress you and how well it would meet your informational needs. [Read more...]