Cyber Monday 2019 has had a record US online sales of sales of $9.4 billion out of which one-third is on mobile phones. It’s not surprising because if you see a bunch of people waiting anywhere – you see them buried in their cell phones.
[Note: This blog post was updated for formatting on February 10, 2021. In COVID times updating your website quickly, is even more important]
We have advocated in earlier posts to make your website mobile friendly. Do the Google mobile friendly test. This post is about why you need to be able to change your website fast in 2020 ‘s. But first,
Why is it so hard to change your web content?
Stratoserve
Here are some top reasons we have observed:
- There are many people involved– on the technical back end side. These could be an in-house tech team or a vendor agency.
- Technical folks don’t seem to have clear instructions from their bosses. If you are the person doing the changes, your boss seems to give more priority to some managers than others.
- Organizational politics play a big role. A less powerful department manager asks for a “contact us” form on a particular page. “The contact form is already there on another page”, the tech person reasons. He/she now needs to discuss with the technical boss. And this could take weeks unless the requesting manager keeps reminding. In case the requesting manager forgets and the tech folks forget- it never gets done. Meanwhile, the advertising agency keeps spending money driving traffic to the department page. The results are lackluster.
We urge our dear readers to resolve that they’ll work on improving web content change speed in 2020. Here are some suggestions to convince your colleagues:
- What does your audience do first? Before calling, emailing they go to your website. Usually through a search engine like Google.
- Address any initial questions that your audience has can on your website. Why? because people first research online as the 2019 online sales confirm.
- No one we have met, is “happy” with their website. This is strange, because website owners and the audience have conflicting needs. While owners like to “look good”, audiences need answers to questions. Before they start talking to you.
- So useful content is much more important than “looks”.
- If you are a line manager, responsible for any type of results . develop a routine to follow-up. Be relentless to follow-up for changes is necessary in 2020. Take your web folks for lunch- friendships help.
- Do not fall into the website “redesign” trap. It makes your organization “look” better but does not help your user. There are too many redesign stories of lost SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking. Because the old content now has a great look but a different url. Search engines take time to index your “new” pages.
- Ensure that your website is mobile friendly. If the 2019 mobile sales don’t convince you- ask your colleagues to look around. At how many people are on their mobile phones at lunch, at the theater, game or any public place.