Websites have been around as long as emails, and have been declared dead as many times. But they still hang in there and remain an essential element for most brands. So how can you design and build an effective website for your organization?
In a new podcast, I speak with Keren Lerner of design agency Top Left Design to get some answers.
Have a listen to the interview on iTunes, SoundCloud or keep reading for a summary of our conversation.
Our tip of the week is the very handy news aggregator Nuzzel and this week's big shout goes out to Lars Ingerslev.
With social, mobile and apps - why do we still need websites?
"Well, I guess two reasons. First of all, assuming that your website is well-planned and well-designed, and you've written really great succinct copy, your website is where you can express what's unique about your business. And you can divide up the information in a way that makes sense for how you want other people to experience it. It's where you can have complete control of how you are perceived.
When it comes to social media like Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook, they complement the online presence that you have, but they're not something you can completely control. You can't control the interface. You can't control if they're going to shut it down one day, and the content that's on those websites is not really owned by you or hosted by you. It's on their servers, so anything could happen."
In comparison to social, websites can be seen as very static. How do you drive engagement on a website?
"It's true. If you just had a website that was what we call a brochure site, then you could just have what they say is static information, that is information that doesn't change very often. But nowadays, most websites include a blog which is the living part of the website where you can continuously update it with stories, and insights, and advice all to help support what you want people to believe about you.
If you have well-written headlines, that'll be the reason why people will arrive at your website because you've got a blog and you've shared your blog articles with well-written headlines, and then, once they're there, they'll be able to explore, look around, and see what else you do.
Another way to drive engagement on a website and make it less static is by having compelling messages where you ask thought-provoking questions, you highlight links to pages that answer the biggest questions that people have. And you can always build in the commenting feature that you have on social media sites into websites. You've probably seen comments on blogs and on some websites. There's quite a lot of conversation that happens between people after they've read a particular blog post within a website. And you can host videos as well. Videos give a lot of movement and enticement to websites."
What are some of the common mistakes you see that companies make with their sites?
"One of the biggest mistakes people make - I'm sure everybody is guilty of this in some respect - is just putting it up and forgetting about it, thinking that your work is done once you've launched the website and then not thinking about your website very often. Quite quickly the information on it will be less relevant or out of date, especially if you've decided that you'll have a blog on your website but then you don't keep it up-to-date. That's one of the only drawbacks of having a blog is that you do need to keep it up-to-date. That's one of the biggest mistakes.
Another one is thinking that you can do it yourself, make your own website when you don't have any sense of design or attention to detail. You have to be quite honest with yourself on how good you are at that sort of thing. Some people believe that they're better than they are. They're kind of delusional, I suppose. Other people are more aware, but don't really mind and don't care about their perceived, and then other people are aware enough to know that they should leave certain bits to the expert and do the bits that are more straightforward themselves."
Follow Keren on Twitter @TopLeftDesign and subscribe on iTunes.