Your website is the face of your company. It is your first impression, and, in many cases, a primary avenue via which current and prospective customers interface with your brand. It is critical, therefore, that your website is a living, breathing entity, impressing and engaging your audience at every turn. Today, the tools and methods you use for managing your corporate website have a profound impact on the success of your site and, subsequently, your business, so you need to make sure you are taking the right steps.

Keeping your website content, layout, and calls to action fresh is key to maximizing the return on your website investment. Combining the insight gained from a reporting tool like Google Analytics with the flexibility and power of an enterprise-class Content Management System, like Common Goal Webmanager 7, can help you meet the demands of a changing market on the fly and stay ahead of your competition. A suite of tools like these can help you achieve the following 5 things that every successful website should help you do:

Stay high in search rankings with fresh content. Google and other search engines love freshness, and they’ll reward it with higher rankings in their search results. They like to see that content is changing and that visitors returning to your site are going to find something new.

Understand your users by analyzing site usage metrics and using a flexible tool to run your own split A/B tests. Take the guessing out of making changes to your site by planning your updates – whether you’re updating messaging, imagery, calls to action, or implementing entirely new functionality – around how visitors are using the site currently. Gaining insight into their actions on the site will help you make informed decisions when it comes to further catering to your user’s needs and interests.

Keep users engaged by tailoring content to keep up to date with changing demands and trends that your audience is interested in and by implementing interactive elements and social media tie-ins. User expectations are changing more frequently now than ever and it’s crucial to be fluid and on top of what’s new and important to your audience. Focus on implementing functionality and interface elements that make your site not just intuitive, but fun to use. And if your users are already engaging in and utilizing social media platforms, create connections to your site to make your users feel right at home and connect with your brand on a more personal level.

Maintain consistent messaging/branding/identity to match your immediate business plans. Have an upcoming sales pitch to a big potential client? Use a flexible CMS to reorder images in your homepage animation or adjust the prominence of certain service offerings to highlight your expertise in a particular field or market relevant to your pitch strategy.

Extend the life of your site by reducing the frequency with which you need to redesign. Making minor strategic updates routinely will keep your site fresh in the eyes of both Google and your visitors, helping eliminate the need costly overhauls on a biennial basis.

Keeping these goals in mind and working to achieve them with each edit to your site is the best way to making your site a success. Have questions or ideas about your current or future site that you’d like to discuss? Get in touch with us to get the ball rolling.