Does your website give the best visitor experience?

Now is the ideal time to take a look at your website from your visitors’ perspective and check it’s working as effectively as possible. Here are some top tips from our associate suppliers; JG Creative and Rare Earth Digital about how to give online visitors the right experience.

Where do you start?

Analysis

Start by finding out where you are right now. Ask yourself…

• Who is visiting our site?
• Which parts of the site are getting the most visitors?
• How long are people visiting for and how many pages are they viewing?

If you’ve got Google analytics installed on your site, or it’s built in Wix then you should be able to see this quite easily. Look for your audience and behaviour data across the last 6-months for answers.

Imagine you’re an (online) visitor. What are you are looking for? At the moment it could be parents looking for educational content or children doing a school project. For each potential audience visit the site through their eyes. How easy it is to find what you’re looking for?

Content

Review and update the information you’ve got on your site. These questions can help:

• Is it true? Content can get out of date very quickly, especially at the moment.
• Is it relevant? Both for your audience and on that particular page.
• Is it useful? Do you need this content on your site at all or is it just adding clutter? Think about older news articles and blog posts especially.

Structure

If you can now see that some of your content is in the wrong place, then it’s time to move it. Focus on your navigation and ensure it’s as simple as possible.

Look

How does your website look? Is it a good representation of the experience people get when they visited you? Can you update any imagery to reflect current collections or restrictions?

Humans are visual creatures, we assume a lot from what we see, not just what we read. If your site looks good quality and works well then people will assume the information can be trusted and will be reassured. Make sure your site looks good on mobiles and tablets too.

The technical bit

You might be wondering, but how do I update my site? Ideally you’ll have a login to get to the ‘back-end’ of your site where you can make changes.

If you have an agency that does this, send the amends through to them but also try and get a login so you can make small changes regularly yourself, without incurring costs.

ALWAYS ensure you own your own website address (URL). This is called the ‘domain’ and you should ensure you control it. If you don’t then make it a priority to get control asap. It is a significant organisational asset.

Search

Once your website is up to date, looking professional and visitors can find what they’re looking for you need to ensure they can get there!

Use an incognito website browser window to search for your museum. Where are you on the results? Try something broader than using your name, for example ‘Museum in Cheshire’. If people can’t remember what you’re called what might they search for? Write these phrases down and ensure they’re used in the text on your website. This means that search engines will know that you’re an appropriate result.

These are the most simple and effective things you can do, which form the basis of everything else that is possible online. Get the basics right and you will see a difference.

If there is anything we can do to help please just get in touch. We’re happy to give free advice if it will help you to get started. Call Jo on 01270 626624 or email jo@jg-creative.co.uk and claire@rareearthdigital.com.

JG Creative and Rare Earth Digital are working with the AIM team on refreshing this website. Look out for more changes coming soon!