Written by Raúl Carrión
Index
At Human Level we have published a new corporate website just a few days ago. I would like to take advantage of this situation to share with you the thoughts that motivated us to make the necessary investment to change our website.
1- Evolution of the company
A website is the virtual office of the company andthe projection of its image on the Internet. In the same way that the design and materials used in a physical office transmit information about the company: solvency, experience, success, etc. your corporate website will also transmit these values with two important differences:
- The budget to have a website that represents your company will always be less than that of a new physical office.
- The number of potential customers visiting your corporate website will be substantially higher than the number of customers visiting your physical offices.
Taking these data into account, we must ensure that our website exalts our virtues and never represents less than what we really are.
At Human Level we detected a few months ago that our website no longer represented us 100%. When we published the previous website we were very proud because it reflected the company we were. But luckily, 3 years later we had improved as a company and the website that we liked so much at the time did not do us justice.
We had a reason to change our website.
2- Increased consumption of information from mobile devices
Numerous studies indicate that the consumption of web pages through mobile devices is increasing day by day. In January 2013 13% of our visits came from mobile devices, by January 2014 mobile users had reached 17% of total traffic despite the fact that our website was not mobile-ready.
It was the perfect time to work on getting the most out of mobile traffic, using a web platform that would allow us to show our products / services in a more effective way in this type of platforms.
For this purpose we had several alternatives: develop a standalone mobile version, apps or responsive design. We finally decided to update the website using the responsive design philosophy for several reasons:
- Google recommends it, as defined in its guidelines.
- Improves SEO, for a multitude of reasons discussed in other articles.
- Easier maintenance, working with only one system for all platforms.
We already had two reasons to change our website.
3- New message to be communicated
In the three years that had passed since the previous website, we had not only improved procedures and services. We had also worked a lot on internal and external training.
During this time our team has been preparing day by day to face new challenges and have gained valuable experience collaborating with high level clients. That had to be reflected on the web.
We have also been providing training in business schools, universities, events, in-company courses, etc. We think that training and experience are important assets in the company, therefore, it had to be reflected on the web.
We already had 3 reasons to change our website.
4- New functionalities / contents
Sometimes, when we add a new functionality or a new section to a website, we see that it does not quite fit with the current information architecture: we cannot place it correctly in the main menu, we do not have the ideal space to advertise it in the home page, etc. At this point we should consider the possibility of changing the website.
It happened to us when we decided to introduce the training section in the previous website: we couldn’t give it the visibility we wanted with the structure we had. After several tests, we were never able to achieve the minimum quality we demanded.
We already had 4 reasons to change our website.
Updating your website, a necessity
In this article, I have used our particular case, but it is not an isolated case. It is normal that over time that website that we liked so much loses synchrony with the company.
Many companies keep their websites static for too long without thinking about all the business they are missing out on by not giving a proper brand image, lack of functionalities or incompatibility with mobile devices.
If you have identified with any of these points, do not hesitate. Seriously consider updating your website.
