I have a new website, now what?
You’ve done it. You’ve launched your new website. There it sits so shiny and new, full of possibility. You’ve announced it on social media, sent out emails to your database and opened a bottle of champagne. This is a time to celebrate.
Yup, a website launch is a big deal. It takes months of planning and hard work. So it’s good to take a breath once it’s all done. But then what? Is that it?
Not by a long shot. It’s what you do after the launch that matters.
A post-launch strategy = website success
We all want our websites to be a success. But, what exactly do I mean by that? Well, a great website doesn’t just represent your brand, it gets people interested in what do, and helps you generate sales. It also helps differentiate you from your competitors.
But it takes a little TLC to get your website to where it needs to be. That’s where continuous improvement steps in.
Continuous improvement is one the tenets of Growth Driven Design (GDD). It focuses on building high-performing websites over time, rather than trying to create a perfect new website right off the bat.
It involves a repeatable, agile process that allows you to collect real-user data, build or fix high-impact items, generate better user engagement and drive business goals. In other words it’s all about tweaking and optimising your site to turn it into a high-performing, user-friendly, client-generating mean machine.
Let’s take a look at how to implement the continuous improvement process...
The 4 Steps of Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement involves a repeatable cycle that’s super easy to follow. You don’t need to stick too strictly to the steps, but they’re a great guide. Let’s dive in:
Step 1: Plan
Step 2: Build
Step 3: Learn
Step 4: Transfer
Step 1: Plan
Every plan starts by assessing your website goals and comparing them to your website’s current performance. This will help you determine which areas of your site need a little love. If you haven’t set any website goals yet, check out Step 2 of our Marketing Manager’s 10 Step Guide to Website Design.
Once you’ve noted the areas that need improvement, prioritise them according to impact. In other words, which areas will provide the most value to your website visitors and help you achieve your goals? It might be beneficial at this stage to do a little research, talk to your customers, or sales and marketing team. Any information will help you make more informative decisions.
Next, take your insights and transform them into realistic action items. Typically your action items will fall into one of the following buckets:
Boosting Conversions
Improving the percentage of users that complete a desired goal on your website.Improving User Experience
Changing areas that will positively impact how users interact with your website.Personalising User Experience
Tailoring the website experience to make it seem more personalised.Building marketing assets
Increasing traffic and improving lead conversions through assets like blogs and social accounts.
Once that’s done and dusted, choose the highest priority action items that you'd like to implement in the cycle. Don’t choose too many items, rather focus on a few so they get your full attention.
Step 2: Build
You guessed it! Now you’ve got to turn those action items into reality.
In the build stage you need to:
Delegate action items to the right people
Choose the team members responsible for each action item and ensure those people have the necessary support to succeed.Determine the timelines for each item
Come up with realistic timelines for each action item and take note of any possible roadblocks.Make it an experiment
Determine the effect you think each action item will have on your website. Decide how you’re going to track the results, so you can pit real data against your hypothesis.
Conduct quality assurance testing
Ensure every action item is thoroughly checked before it’s launched, to make sure it works as expected.Launch the action items
Launch the changes to the public when you’re ready. Rope in your marketing team to develop campaign strategies that’ll promote any changes.
Step 3: Learn
Now it’s time to determine if the changes had any impact on how your users interact with your website. Assess the data results of each change and ask yourself the following questions:
Did the change have the effect you thought it would? Why or why not?
Did it teach you anything valuable about your users?
Did your users behave as expected?
Does this affect any possible future changes?
Document your insights and get ready to share them with your team!
Step 4: Transfer
Sharing is caring. Gather your team and get them up to speed with your findings. Discuss ways to move forward with each action item and document these thoughts for the next planning step. You may decide to work on refining one action item in multiple continuous improvement cycles!
Wash, Rinse and Repeat
Yup you guessed it, put this playlist on repeat! The goal of continuous improvement is to plan, build, learn, transfer until you’re satisfied that your website goals are met.
Remember, by continuously improving your website you’re staying ahead of your competitors, keeping your website fresh and delivering a user-friendly website experience.
Need some guidance on getting your site started? Why not check out our Marketing Manager’s 10 Step Guide to Website Design?