Very few things in life are truly done.

Your car, your home, your business; all these things need constant attention.

So why would you think your website is any different?

After all, your business website is not a static piece of technology. It’s software, which means it needs updating, constant attention, and even repairs.

The expectation.

Here’s the expectation: you’re going to need to spend either time or money on your website.

And you’re going to have to spend time and money on it, every month.

If you expect to get any sort of ROI from your business website, you’re going to need to accept that your website is dynamic. Static = staying the same. Dynamic = constantly changing.

Your website, whether it’s built on a WordPress platform, ASP, or custom coded, will need updates to keep it secure, attention to improving it, and upgrades to make it fresh for your prospects and customers.

The expectation: your website will never be done. If anyone tells you otherwise, run from them because they’re lying to you. And who wants to work with people who knowingly mislead you?

Why is my website never done?

One of the biggest reasons your business website is never done is because your prospects and customers don’t like websites that were updated when GeoCities was in existence.

Think about it. Do you love websites that are updated every 5 years? Do you like to do business with a company that has a website that was last updated in 1997? Of course not. Your customers and prospects don’t either.

When considering your company’s website, have some empathy. Empathy is the practice of putting yourself in the shoes of another person. Your customers and prospects want to visit websites that are updated often, and with engaging content. Think about them when creating your website.

So why is your website never done? Because your prospects and customers want fresh, frequently modernized websites. Not old ones that are overhauled once a decade.

How prospects finding your website is never done.

We too often hear from our clients and prospects that they need “SEO help.”

But there’s a lot of bad information about SEO.

We’ve found that most businesses don’t really need “SEO help.” What they need is knowledge. Armed with this kind of power that comes from knowledge, you’ll be able to generate the relevance that only comes from understanding what SEO actually is.

But before we tell you what it is, let’s first determine what it used to be:

• SEO used to be stuffing your website with keywords, and key phrases.
• SEO used to be that you could strategically place branded and non-branded keywords on your site and people would find you.
• SEO used to be that you could build a website for $2,500 bucks and get found in search results with relative ease.
• You can’t simply pay an SEO firm $250 dollars a month and expect results, in order for your prospects to find you online.

It’s not that way anymore. Here is what SEO is:

• SEO comes from creating high-quality, authentic content on your website. This is a large part of why your site is never truly done.
• SEO comes from creating content, on a regular basis.
• Content is defined as anything you put on your site. It’s stuff like text, visual graphics, video, images, audio (podcasts) or animations.
• When you create content on a consistent basis, you get a weight or a value that’s given to you by the search engines.
• Then when people, like prospects, begin reading and hopefully sharing this content, you’ll reap the benefits of higher SEO authority given to your website.

For more on these and how to make your site valuable to the search engines, learn more here.

SEO is also a lot of little things.

• It’s the proper naming of the images on your site with alt descriptions.
• It’s creating and sharing content on social media because you get weight and value from this.
• It’s by creating landing pages that engage your prospects and turn them into leads.
• It’s how you design you blog, so the layout doesn’t suck.

Your website is never done because in order for you to get any sort of legitimate return on investment, you need to generate content that drives SEO value.

Why design is critical.

You have mere seconds to grab your prospects and visitor’s attention.

A really good design will help you do that. A great design is one where your visitors find exactly what they’re looking for, with little effort.

Which is why design is critical to your website’s ultimate success.
Your website needs to be designed with your prospects in mind. From the layout, the messaging, the color scheme, to the navigation structure, this all needs to be in place so you get the best outcome.

Your website is never done because your design will change over time to meet the different web trends and keep up with what’s engaging to your visitors.

The grunt test.

The single biggest reason that your website is never truly done is because of your messaging.

The messaging that you publish on your website will need consistent tweaking, changing and updating. And a great way to test and see if your messaging is hurting you or helping you comes from the grunt test.

Author Donald Miller talks about the grunt test as a way for companies to test the messaging on their websites. The grunt test is simple: it’s a test where you would theoretically sit a caveman in front of a laptop, show them your website for 5 seconds, and ask them to describe how your business would help them.

You need 3 things in order to pass the grunt test:

1. What is it that you offer?
2. How will it make my life better?
3. What do I need to do to buy it?

If the messaging on your site is confusing, you’re losing sales. If your visitors and prospects come to your site, and a caveman can’t tell how it is you can help them in 5 seconds or less, then you’ve lost the battle. A few things to note when crafting the messaging for your website:

• Tagline. Your website should have an easy to understand tagline. A tagline clearly communicates what you do.
• Call to action. Your website needs to drive your visitors to take some sort of action. You want to have a clear call to action. This call to action needs to be visible on your homepage, and every other page on your site. Develop one or two very strong calls to action for your entire site.
• Show them success. Your website needs to show your prospects and customers the success they’ll achieve if they use your product or service. Use images to communicate this, as well as other content like client case studies and even testimonials.
• Simple steps. Breakdown your product or services into small steps. For example, show your prospect how you can solve their problems in 3 easy steps. This process is simple to understand and easy to convey.
• Too much knowledge. Avoid the curse of knowledge. Too much information while using your own industry jargon will confuse your potential customers.

Your messaging is important and you’ll be changing and adjusting your messaging on your website for years to come. Instead of fighting it, embrace it. It’s a job that’s never done.

Your website is like a living organism.

We touched on this subject once before.

Your website is like a living organism. It’s not static, rather it’s dynamic.

It needs constant love from you or your web designer. It may seem like an expense, but it’s all about perspective. Making your overall web presence a solid one isn’t an expense, but an investment. In order to stay relevant and compete with your competition online, shift your mindset to focus on why your website will never be done.

Talk to us. We can help.

Take a look at our services, and contact us here for a consultation.