As many of you know, I've been helping a friend with a wonderful line of cancer awareness jewelry at www.butterflyoflife.com. If you have a second, please give it a look.

Here's the update:

With a simple redesign that focused on the customer experience, the site improved it's conversion rates dramatically. Our focus was increasing our inbound links: we went from just a handful of inbound links to over 2,000 as of today. We use Hubspots free website grader (and great seminars) to keep an eye on our progress.

I think this is a great example of what can go right when designing a website. Consider this:

1. Focus on strategy, not design. Websites are integral parts of your customer communication strategy. Spend resources thinking out where it fits into your total value proposition, and what the customer needs from your website.

2. Measure, measure, measure. Before you start the redesign, figure out how you will define and track success.

3. Spend 80% of resources (time and money) on content, 20% on design. As Seth Godin says "There are more than a billion pages on the web. Surely there's one that you can start with." Really, is your website so ground breaking you need a fresh design? Will it annoy your customers less than a well tested, Wordpress powered template?

4. BLOG. BLOG. BLOG. If you have nothing to say to your customers, someone else will.

5. Other channels - EBay, Google Base, Yahoo Products, MSN, etc. A must.

If you are considering a site redesign, drop me a note.

This entry was posted by Mike Nolan, on Friday, July 11, 2008. You can leave your response.