Cynosura

Your website and the New Year

It’s New Year.  The old year is well behind us.  Back to work - we settle into the usual routines. 

Unfortunately, not everything is well in the virtual world of the web.  A swift trawl of a number of websites both in the ‘not for profit’ and corporate sectors finds the old year lingering on.

This year’s happenings are now last year’s.  Has your website been refreshed?  Are there dark corners of the site that still linger in the old year? 

Overview

Almost every website is time limited.  It contains items that give away secrets about when the site was last reviewed by its owner.

The telltale sign could be the ‘last updated’ notation often found tucked in the bottom of the home page or more openly within the main text at the top of the page. 

Every year websites for active (we thought) organisations display the ‘last updated’ notation as three or four years old. 

Other key signs include dates of meetings, internal elections, minutes of meetings, training dates, fund raisers and other similar events.

Places to look

• The Home Page.  Does your home page contain any information which refers to ‘this year’ when in truth that statement relates to ‘last year’?  For example, statements that read “the past two years”; should they now read “in the past three years”
• Events.  Many home pages contain lots of links to other sections.  Does your home page have links to events, conferences and trade fairs that took place in the previous year. 

Also special events; is your website still actively advertising for an event that took place months before.  Or does it read “the event is over but please register so that we can keep you informed about next year” – is that for 2009 or 2010, 2011 or beyond? Of course this might be clever advertising for the next event.

Some sites talk about the event “will be taking place from . . .” – a date that is long since past.  Many continue to encourage the visitor to register for more information.

On other sites the home page has links to a special ‘one off’ event.  On one occasion we found a page that headlined the event but was entirely blank

• Membership.  Are you still talking about the previous year’s “200? subscriptions are now due”
• People.  This is particularly fraught for any organisation.  Corporates are especially bad at updating changes to Boards and Senior management – we know because when we write to them we often get a haughty letter back saying that this person left in 200?.

For member based organisations there are two areas to consider.  First the permanent staff; are they still there and are they still doing the job as indicated.

The second consideration is elected members.  Updating as soon as an election has happened or a new appointment is made is important.  Many organisations are very assiduous at doing this – however, the danger is in the cross referencing. 

On the main elections page you may have changed the name of the Chairman but what about elsewhere?  Does the name of the old Chairman linger on in the committee, media and publications pages.  The more intricate the website the greater the danger

• Meetings.  Some organisations list their committee or board meetings for the forthcoming year.  That’s great as long as they are not the previous year’s meetings that are still on the website
• Publications.  Are your advertisements for current publications up to date?  We found a site where the Yearbook for the previous year was advertised as  ‘Just published’
• Photographs. Regular visitors to a site may see the same things over and over again.  If it is a deliberate policy then fine, but if it is an active site then seeing the same picture over and over again, year in year out can be tedious.  In one site a worthy is handing a membership certificate to a new member – and has been for many years!  Don’t they have any new members?
• Commercial services.  Is the site giving the old prices or have they been updated for the New Year.  For example, does it say – ‘200? prices’

Transparency and your website

How transparent is your website and who is it designed to serve?

For membership based organisations there will be areas that should be reserved for those who have paid to gain access.  However, at least one site has an entry in each section that says ‘access for members only’.  A statement on the home page that access is restricted to members only would be helpful.

Beware having sections with no content.  One trade association site contains a section where it advertises members companies by product and service.  After three attempts at accessing a product/service we gave up because each time it said “no supplier of this product has been found”.  What sort of message does this send to the visitor?  Don’t they have any members?  Where this sort of service is offered it would be sensible to place only those services and products which are supplied by members.

Keeping your website fresh

Below are a number of thoughts as to how you can prevent some of the issues raised above.

• Have a dedicated website administrator. 
• If you have a website administrator in-house but they have other duties as well, then build in quarterly review periods when you can sit down with them and check that the website is up to date
• Keep a record of all new entries and especially make a note if they are time sensitive
• When reviewing, make sure that you check out the ‘murky corners’ of your website and not just the most visited pages
• Beware of the wording used.  Try and make wording non time sensitive to avoid making changes
• Ask regular visitors or a small group of members to check out the website and notify you of any glitches they may find
• Review your website once a year to check if it is all relevant, is easy and quick to navigate, is transparent and has a site map.  Also ask yourself – ‘who are our target audiences?’

Final thoughts

Ask yourself this question;

‘If we were building our website today what would be our priorities, who would be our target audiences, what would we want to put in and what could we leave out?’

Now look at your website and ask yourself if it is meeting your needs and expectations.

And one final, final thought

Do you have an intranet or membership only section?  If you do then this is a whole new area which is open to a further series of opportunities to be out of date – are you still advertising your Christmas lunch several months into the New Year?

There is a big difference between knowing the theory and making it happen. For help in implementing your communications practices email us now.