Why do you need a website? Text

“A website in the modern world is an important tool for any business” – in most cases, answers to the question “Why do you need a website” begin with something like this. Problem is, if you think about it a little, this is not really an answer at all. It contains no information, which you can actually use in everyday life. It’s more of a mantra that you can simply memorize and repeat, taking it for granted. In fact, somewhere in the subconscious the following question remains looming – “so, why is it important?”

Let’s figure it out.

First of all, a few words about awareness. Awareness, in its essence, is a useful state of consciousness in which many things become much clearer and more understandable. You can talk and talk about this a lot, approaching it from different angles (I do, and talk about it a lot); within the framework of this topic, it will be enough to say that awareness is a useful habit of always asking yourself “why?”, and seeing how clearly you can answer it.

So you think that you need a website. Ask yourself “why do I need it?” If the answer is something like “Just so it’s there” then there is a good reason to think again. If nothing comes to your mind, then here’s a little more useful information:

What is a “Website”?

A site (Web site, website, and other variations of same the name) is certain kind of virtual stucco, consisting of text and visual information. It can be interactive, it can be static, it can be understandable or incomprehensible, paid or free, beautiful or ugly. These are secondary details. It is important to understand two things – what this site is supposed to do and how well it does it. These are the only important factors by which you can judge whether a website is good or not.

At its core, the site is not much different from a star screwdriver. A star screwdriver is an excellent tool for working with screws and bolts that have star threads. It can also be used for, for example, piercing holes, but it’s less effective for this kind of task (therefore “you can”, but there is a separate tool for this). And most importantly, it is completely useless for, for example, hammering nails, grinding, polishing, as well as a huge number of other tasks. It’s the same with websites – they are effective in some tasks, but not in others. It is crucial to understand exactly what you want it to do for you.

Websites can be created to increase brand awareness. They can generate sales on the Internet. They can spread information, objective or not. They can also be made so that a certain investor, auditor, banker or partner visit them once a year to make sure that your company exists.

The site may be designed to emphasize that your product is exclusive and expensive. In the same way, it can show that the product is mass-produced, affordable and accessible. These are all variations of tasks that must be consciously set for it. They will determine its appearance, structure and cost.

If the task set for the site is unclear, then the output is a tool with existential crisis that is unsure of why it exists and how it will be useful in your business.

Awareness should be in everything.

What should a good website be like? Text

First of all, you need to understand what “good” means for your business. It can only be as good as how well it performs all the tasks assigned to it. And to assign them, you have to be able to clearly understand them.

A car cannot be fast, safe, spacious and economical at the same time. Same applies to the website – it cannot be everything at the same time, do everything and please everyone.

A website, as mentioned earlier, is merely a tool. In most cases – one of a number of tools that you should utilize to run a successful business. It should work in conjunction with other tools, and not work on its own. That is why it’s important to understand exactly how a visitor should interact with the website, website interact with your hotline, and the hotline – with an operator in your office. Furthermore, you should be able to see a wider picture of how this schema fits into your business model, your brand positioning and the expected behavior of your target audience.

That is why there is no such things as, for example, mandatory placement of your phone number in the website header, if you do not plan to communicate with your customers by phone (say, if you are an eCommerce store). But if you are a car repair shop, then your phone number should be visible on the website as soon as it loads. In fact, a clickable phone number, WhatsApp icon, and Google Maps location should all be there, because you never know – a person may be driving and would want to start a call with one tap, or they may be looking for your location, or send you a photo of car damages, so you can evaluate them.

It is important to understand the following:

• A website is a part of your toolkit, not your entire business. Yes, it should represent your business and reflect its ideology, but it also should work in unison with your other instruments, and not interfere with them, and not try to replace them.
• A website should be as simple and understandable as possible for “Your” visitors. Precisely “Your”. Hence the third:
• You must understand who is “Your” website visitor. In other words, who is your “target audience”, what will they be looking for, and what would be the best way to give it to them.

Only when you understand exactly who your audience is, how they behave, and how you can do “Good” to them with your business, will you understand what a “Good website” means in your case, and most importantly, what it should be like.

Why do I need to update my website?
It’s working fine. Text

A website, like any tool, needs regular (or at least periodic) maintenance. To fully understand this, you need to remember where your website lives – both physically (on a server) and virtually (on the Internet). A server is, in fact, a computer that, like any computer, gradually ages, wears out, requires an upgrade or replacement of one of its parts from time to time. The Internet, in turn, is a complex, dynamic, continuously developing ecosystem with constantly changing standards, trends and technologies.

A brand new car does not need any repairs. A clean house needs no cleaning, and your brain on Monday is fresh and needs no resting (usually). But these are all situational states of things. Over time, a car ages and wears out, a house becomes covered with dust and dirt, and your brain gets tired within a week and begins to make mistakes.

A website, being physically located on a server and operating on the Internet, needs to be taken care of in a similar way. This includes a fairly wide list of tasks:

Technical tasks. Updating the engine and plugins, checking for viruses, testing for compatibility with updated server settings, testing for compatibility with new versions of plugins… In general, updating and testing. Testing and updating.

Ideological, creative and commercial tasks. It’s getting more interesting here. Do you have confidence that your website is as effective at fulfilling its objectives as it was two years ago? The Internet has changed during this time, and it is possible that people (including your audience) may have developed new behavioral habits and expectations, and now there are other websites which are more effective than yours. Of course, it may not be the case, but this greatly depends on the type of what business does it represent, and what objectives are assigned to it (don’t forget about the importance of awareness).

Be that as it may, you should not neglect updating your website. I recommend visiting it at least once every six months and, even as an experiment, thinking about how it can be improved. Within these six months, being a fellow Internet user, you will be aware about how Internet is currently running, and as a result – will be able to find something on your website that needs to be changed, removed, swapped, added or repainted, which will hypothetically make it a more effective tool.

Unless remaining exactly the same over time isn’t the direct objective of your website (which is not impossible), you should still every once in a while carry out at least a technical inspection to check its compatibility with current updates on the server. If you don’t do this, especially over the years, then there will be a growing risk of finding out one day that your website is not working anymore at all.