If you’re a professional and don’t yet have a personal website, or you have one and you think your work is done, this article by Rebecca Murtagh on SearchEngineWatch.com will give you a new perspective.
She claims we’re operating under an outdated concept of what websites really are, how they should be planned, and how they should be used. And those misconceptions are hurting our ability to communicate well in our business lives.
I agree with her completely. The idea that a personal website is a ‘project’ that has a beginning and an end is archaic. Once they’re built, the content needs to be updated to stay current, or even better, expanded as you acquire deeper and more varied experience.
Websites need ongoing care, just as your home needs care after it’s built.
Furthermore, like a good custom home, websites need to be planned for functionality BEFORE they are ‘designed — which is the exact opposite of how most people build their websites. It’s common practice, unfortunately, to start with design first — it’s more fun to choose colors and font styles than to develop a content strategy and site architecture.
To extend the house analogy, you wouldn’t start laying carpet and painting the walls before you designed a functional floor plan. If you’ve ever lived in a house with too few bathrooms. or a kitchen located inconveniently far from the family’s living area, you know how uncomfortable and annoying it is to live with these functional flaws.
A poorly designed floorplan is much more difficult and expensive to fix than changing the wall colors. Cosmetic features are important for aesthetics and psychological comfort, but they should never be the first phase of the planning process. It’s the same with websites, Murtagh says:
The Website Process Should Never Begin With Design
Design is fun and creative. And nine times out of 10, most brands begin the process to build a website with adesign, whether it’s new or a redesign. Rushing into design without a strategic plan is one of the reasons so many websites fail to meet the expectations or deliver ROI.
In my opinion, this mistaken perspective is a common symptom of the growing pains we’re all facing as we move further into our new internet-based world.
As the web continues to become more commercial, as Murtagh points out, the way businesses define web projects has an impact on how we think about them. Currently, they’re treated as a business expense – which is short term thinking.. Mentally, we all need to shift them to the asset side of the balance sheet, and plan for their long term development and maintenance.
Websites are not novelties anymore.
They’re a dynamic extension into the virtual world — for businesses, and for individuals with a presence in the business world. We can continue as if the world is still in 1990’s. Or we can embrace reality and start treating our personal websites as the online assets they are.
Read Rebecca Murtagh’s complete article here: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2293329/Its-Time-to-Update-the-Definition-of-a-Website.