I can tell pretty early on in a project what the chances of this being a successful web project are. I don’t mean that the new website project won’t result in a great brand new site (it usually does). What I am talking about is 6 months or a couple of years down the track.
It goes like this… you get a new site, put in lots of work, get it live and everyone is happy. You tick the ‘finished’ box and then you go on to something else. A few months later and the site never gets anything in the ‘latest’ column, nothing is updated, the forums remain empty, you have sent no emails. Your site is dead.
Dead site syndrome. It looks live, but it is not. And while it takes time for it to play out this way I can usually tell in the design phase how it’s going to go. It’s down to the status of the project and who is running it…
Dead site early warning system
Some early warning signs of this syndrome are:
- A manager who has no direct experience in digital beyond email – will spend all their time understanding the basics
- The person running the project is relatively junior – the project has no status
- The person running the project is insanely busy – the project is one of ten things they are ‘overseeing’
- The organisation is being made to have a new website – for instance their new site is part of grant conditions
- No one will take responsibility for writing the content
- Not interested in talking about analytics or website KPI/metrics
The end result is a website that is dead on the vine. If customers can tell that your content is not timely or relevant then they just won’t come back, they won’t sign up for your emails and they won’t listen ever again. Dead dead dead.
So what do you do to avoid it?
You have to keep working it, you have to keep putting in new relevant content, you have to keep figuring out what ‘relevant’ means as your business or organisation changes around you. You have to look at all the ‘ancillary’ services like blogging, twitter, adwords and so on. You must discover ways to measure your sites effectiveness, ways to integrate the site stats with your business review processes. And I’m not just talking about the ecommerce people, I am very much talking about the charities and the public sector clients (the ones I spend most of my time with).
The best way to think about this is to imagine a digital strategy of which your website forms one part. It might be the rock, but it’s best thought of as a part of a whole.
For instance most public sector organisations shy away from email campaigns even though it is often the best thing for them. If your site isn’t a massive traffic mill (and most small public sector sites are not) then email is a fantastic way to see that you are remaining relevant to your audience. Open and click rates on emails will tell you an awful lot about your site – what works well and what is also-ran material.
Signs of life
What we are talking about is making sure that there are signs of life around your site. There is good content value in things like blogs, but there is also ancillary value in that your site looks alive. Your job is to keep your site alive and show that your are doing so.
This performative aspect of looking after a site is really important.
And it can seem like hard work if you are working on a garden-variety public sector site, often the organisation will seem a bit, well, dull but there is a way to get excited about what your site does.
What’s at the heart of your site?
The signs of life must should point back to the heart of the site, what it is selling/communicating.
Every site ’sells’ something. It might just be a point of view. Or an opportunity. Even the most staid public sector site has a basic offer.
The Medical Research Council (where I used to work) has a site that has lots of ’stuff’ in it, but essentially it was offering a couple of things: Grant mechanisms, governance info and corporate stuff (spin or not!). All pretty prosaic. But look at the human benefits of each of these things:
- An MRC grant gives the holder…. Status, 5+ years of research freedom, a career and top-flight position within that career.
- Governance info gives the reader…. Security, proof of diligence over many years. MRC = safe pair of hands.
- Corporate bumpf… History, authenticity, validation, organisational status.
Suddenly you realise that your site is selling emotional effects, it has a beating heart: Status, security, authenticity – great! If you don’t know what this beating heart is on your site or in your digital strategy you need to operate – now!
You need to care… and show it.
Take a look at your site – does it need some love? Who is going to care if you don’t?
So you do care, well you have to keep proving it. Week after week. Planning new content, evaluating the site, listening to what your audience is saying to you, showing signs of life.
And when your web designer/strategist asks you if you have thought about site KPIs or content strategies or annual reviews – anything beyond the short term goal of getting a new site up – you should be able to say yes, or be prepared to listen very hard indeed.
Your new site is a product, but it also needs to function as a process.