SWISSLOGIC in the News
Solving the fundamental problems of Website development and design
How to expand the lifecycle of your web site
by GREGOR NUSSBERGER on OCTOBER 31, 2008 Ahhh you love that new car smell. Your luscious hands brush across the dashboard. You lovingly clean the slightest bird droppings and you look back over your shoulder when you walk away from the parking lot. Websites feel the same, don’t they? You love the new and sleek look. Everything is carefully tuned and honed to your vigorous specifications. You proudly present your business card and remind your prospects to visit your proverbial web home. After three years of pampering content, links, images, videos and text you finally admit, your website is like an old chewing gum. No matter how much flavor you add, it looks old.
Design is a fickle thing. Humans get accustomed to new looks and expect it from your online business. So what can you do to expand your web lifecycle?
1. Pick the right technology from the get go. In my opinion you only have two viable choices for dynamic websites. PHP or ASP.NET
2. Consider integrating business automation into your website. For example, you sell socks online and your conglomerate has warehouses on both sides of the continent. Keep inventory, human resources, shipping and tracking online in your back office. The back office will let you login via user name and password to keep track of any activity in real time. The live span of a back office is considerably longer than your front end (the site your customers see). Programming changes do not require whole site redesign and even if you choose to redesign you can still keep the underlying back office structure. Therefore, if you select a solid program technology (PHP or ASP.NET) you'll build a foundation for many years to come. I would also like to note here the importance of code commenting. Chances are your IT staff will change.New personnel you bring into your organization will waste little time figuring out well commented code.
3. Design with common standards in mind. People are accustomed to quickly find menus on top or on the left side. Trying to educate the visitor will backfire. You shorten the web site lifecycle by not following common long established rules
4. Keep your colors in check. Whites and grays have the longest life cycle. Start with light colors such as pastels and add little color at a time. As of this writing, black sites are not good for e-commerce unless your product warrants the look, such as a magic supply site.
5. Design with CSS or templates. These technologies will allow quick global changes to your site. Sometimes an aging site can be “refreshed” with new background images or colors.
6. Update every 6 month. Rather than spending large amounts of money for a redesign keep smaller changes in mind. The added benefit is better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) positioning as the search engines “see” you are a business in flux.
In conclusion, your web presence IS your business, the gateway to the world. Think about your site as you enviously look at next year’s car model. People love fresh, new, exciting, surprising, sleek…well…you get the picture.
