A website is never ‘done’
One thing I’d love to change about how people see their website content is the idea that this is work that can be ‘finished’.
I was speaking to someone recently about a redesign and they said:
‘I just can’t wait for it to be DONE so I can move on to something else.’
I hear this sentiment all the time. People wishing for a magical future time when the website and the content will be complete, and they won’t have to think about it anymore. It always sets alarm bells ringing for me.
Why? It’s totally the wrong mindset, in my opinion.
If you work on your website, dust off your hands, and say ‘Finished!’, it’s going to stagnate. The performance won’t improve, the content will go out-of-date, you’ll miss new opportunities.
It’s also a big part of the reason so many organisations end up hating their website and going for a big rewrite and redesign every few years. They ‘did it’, moved on, and never looked back.
Your website and content should always be a work in progress and always on your priority list. When you get into this mindset, you’re opening the door to continuous improvements. You don’t have to be making huge changes all the time. It could just be small incremental changes, like removing things that are out-of-date, improving the wording and usability based on feedback, or adding new content once in a while.
If you’ve neglected your site, a content audit is a great way to get engaged again. It’ll show you what’s working, what’s out of date, and what improvements you can make. I’ve got a free content audit planner or a paid-for toolkit that’ll help you carry out an effective audit (even if you’ve never done one before) on my site.
I’m not publishing on Medium anymore — if you want to read more of my writing, you’ll find it here: https://lapope.com/thinking/
