Your website should be your lab. The more you experiment, the better the results

Two mindsets and approaches

In companies where products are offline, a countrywide sales team is in place, and transactions are largely offline, websites are an imposition. But e-commerce companies know that the website is the only mode of survival and growth. It receives constant attention and evolves with the company.

One look at the company website is enough – you know, the ones that have become ‘ghost sites’ where no one visits - the last entry under ‘news’ is from 3-4 years ago, and so are the blog posts. The design is even a giveaway and indicates how involved the company is.

E-commerce companies don’t have to be told how important websites are. They know. The transition takes ages in companies built long before the Internet. Then, the company’s core business has little to do with being online, leaving it untended. It’s where the biggest neglected opportunity is.

After launch, internal interest drops

There are several approaches to building company websites. The most common one, however, is to approach it like a project with deadlines and responsibilities. So, the people tasked with managing the process will include several suggestions for the menu, navigation and content.

Opinions and views will fly back and forth, and several ‘versions’ of the website will be tried. The main sticking points will be the presentation of information, the pictures to be used and the content clusters within sections.

Long meetings will happen where the ‘website project’ is discussed threadbare. Then, once it is finalised, the tech team involved will take over and develop the site. We know how most of these are managed – Home, Products, Services, and Company Details. Practically every company follows these steps to building a site and what should constitute the menu.

Once the website is launched, internal interest drops dramatically. Only the people who work on content and maintain the site spend time on it. Unless, of course, e-commerce is the lifeblood of the company, and its growth and survival are dictated by how well the website performs.

Website degrade over time unless tended

Search engines keep pinging sites on a schedule. If a website has the same content with no updates for months, it loses out on the ‘recency’ score. It’s almost like products that go into the attic or are stored in warehouses. No one visits, and rankings keep dropping.

Even if all the information on the site is relevant, a competitor who keeps updating their site will move up in ranking and customer mindshare. Content about the company’s products and services is not hard to generate. Content creation and website promotion should be a component of every year's budget—and when they grow over time, companies will see the long-term benefits play out in the form of higher sales and lower costs per sale.

Experiment. It's the best way to hit a goldmine.

Experimenting on your website costs a fraction of external promotion costs. And you don’t even have to look at ranking and traffic on a daily basis. The principle is the same as bank investment. Keep generating content consistently. Reward visitors with value every time they stop by. Build trust article by article.

Get the basics right. Your website should be mobile-friendly, or else navigation becomes impossible. Today, over 80% of the world navigates the internet on mobile. If your website displays poorly on mobile, your market shrinks every year. If you were to make your existing website responsive simply, you would get a fresh start from search engine bots as well.

Your website is the best place to run experiments, especially when traffic is low and you have quite a bit of work to do. Work with video and audio. See if you can make your site load faster. Try content about products from differing points of view and see what visitors seem to like and keep coming back for.

CMS Hub lets you experiment easily and capitalise on what works. What could be better than that?

At BlueOshan, we have been working with HubSpot’s Content Hub for a while, and our design and development skills have grown manifold over time. Whether you are planning an existing installation or a new one, our CMS consultants will be happy to support you.