When creating a new website the most important piece is the focus. What are you trying to do? What do you want the user to do? What is the expected outcome? To often a websites focus is sacrificed for unnecessary changes. Following these simple tips will help improve your websites functionality and keep the focus.
Let’s start off with a quick example:
You are starting a blog about exotic cars and car parts. You figure you could write about something you already love and sell some car parts while you are at it.
Get it right from the start
When starting any new website you must first decide what is the website suppose to do. This may seem obvious but it is often confused with the idea. The idea is what the website is about. The focus is what you want to do with that idea.
In this case your idea is to write about cars and car parts. Your focus can either be selling car parts or gathering a strong reader base. I personally would rather make money, so we will say the focus is selling automotive parts.
When you’re designing the blog you should be focused on selling car parts. Everything from your content to your design should have this is mind. This may seem limiting but in all actually this makes designing and writing much easier. There are a variety of ways to increase the effectiveness but the key here is to have the focus in mind.
Learn to say no
It is easy to make updates to your website and for this reason alone many websites lose their focus. Changes to the website that are not going to benefit the focus should be strongly discouraged.
In our example we are using a blog and blogs have thousands of free widgets and plug-ins to choose from. With all these fun options out there it’s hard to not to place them all over your site. But before placing that latest plug-ins on your blog ask your self, does this plug-ins help our focus or hinder it. If it doesn’t help simply say NO.
Testing Testing Testing
Whenever you make a change to your website, even if the focus is your reason for doing it, you have to test.
If you add a new call to action on your auto parts website and you don’t test, you will have no way of knowing if it improved anything. The key when making any design or content change is to remember that you are not the demographic, to go with your gut feeling and not the numbers will lead to wasted time and possible loss in revenue.
Sum it up…
The key to a successful website is establishing a focus and avoiding complacency. If the focus is always the number one priority in your design, development and marketing, your website will avoid unneeded changes and potential losses in revenue. Never sacrafice your websites goal.
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