Why Do a Website Redesign

“Eric, I’ve had my website for 5 years, is it time to do a website redesign?”

This, or some form of it, is a question we get asked from business owners who understand the value having the right website brings to their business.  Some had made their own website when they were a startup entrepreneur, others have had a professionally designed website for years.

Now I think the answer we give normally catches them off guard.

In short, the answer is the good ‘ole frustrating cliche; “it depends.”

Signs It May Be Time For A Website Redesign

 

1. Your website focuses on you and not your audience.

 

If your website is all about you, your services, and/or your products; it’s time for a redesign.  I’m not saying don’t highlight your services or products, but does your website help the person looking at the site see them using and benefiting from what you have?

Don’t list a product/service, demonstrate the benefit.  I love the saying; “no one buys a drill, people are buying the hole the drill will make.”  What is the problem your product solves? And, why does your drill make getting the hole better than another drill?

2. Your website isn’t up to date with best practices to provide an amazing user experience.

 

Is your phone number easy to access?  Is your address located at the bottom of every page in an area known as the footer?  Do you have enough contrast between colors so individuals with vision disabilities can easily read your site?  Is your website designed for people who use adaptive equipment?  How about security?  Does your website address have “http” in front of it or does it have what it should have with “https” in front of it?

If you answered no to these questions DON’T REDESIGN YOUR WEBSITE.  

Well, maybe redesign your website.  Some of these common mistakes can be fixed by just updating content.  If you’d like a custom audit free website audit, just click here and email me.  My name is Eric, and I’m the lead web designer for Hasseman Marketing.   I’ll take a look at your site and let you know if it’s compliant with the American’s With Disability Act, how it compares to websites with best practices for user experience, and I’ll show you exactly how you fix any issue on your own.  I promise to never email you again with a sales email.

3. Your website isn’t ranking in search results.

 

When someone does a search on the internet looking to solve the problem your service or products solves, and they don’t see your website in the search results, that’s lost sales.  Sales that are going to your competition.  Ouch.

The hard truth about ranking in search results is this.  Google doesn’t rank you, your competition does.  If their website is structured for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and your’s isn’t,  They win.

Again, you may not need an entire redesign of your website, you may just need some tweaks to the content.

In fact, you can get a free audit of your site’s SEO right now with our free tool.  Just enter your website’s address and email below:


 

4. Your website looks and feels dated.

 

Unless vintage is your brand, a vintage feeling website isn’t going to help you.  By now, it’s just expected that a website will be responsive to different screen sizes.  It’s expected that you’ll have up to date information. I mean, have you ever been on a website and they had an announcement for something that happened three years ago?  If your site is not up to date, your visitors are quickly going to leave.

So, when is the last time you took a very close look at every word on every page of your website?  If it’s been awhile, that’s probably your first step.

BONUS INFORMATION

 

What’s the benefit of a website redesign?

 

Simple.  A new site gives you something to promote.  It’s an updated tool to help you do more business or reach more people with our message.  It helps you reconnect with current customers that have drifted away and helps you find new a new audience.

For example, we just did a redesign in the last couple of months of this website.  The results?  A 41% increase in visitors.  That’s a big result that you could have for your website as well.

Again, feel free to take us up on our offer to look your site over by sending us an email here.  Or, use our free SEO audit tool above for a free instant report.

 

 

The New Website Is Here

We are so excited to welcome you to our new and improved website!  At Hasseman Marketing, we work hard to provide our customers and prospects value, and we hope our new site is better designed to do just that.  On the other hand, we wanted to keep some of the personality that made our old site fun!  So let’s talk a bit about what you are going to find today…and moving forward!

We Are A Media Company:  I talk all of the time with our clients that “everyone is a media company” today.  I wrote this post last year and talked about my commitment to that.  But the fact is, though we create more content than most companies, we had it all over the place on the web.  This new and improved site has nearly all of our content in one place.  We have our blog on the site, which we have always had.  But you can also find Delivering Marketing Joy, my Day in the Life VLOG, and several podcasts…all right here!  My goal is to have a new piece of content on this page nearly every day!

Showcasing Our Services: Believe it or not, our old site did not have all of the things that we offered on it!  We want to fix that.  Now each of the areas where we can serve your business, has a dedicated page on the site.  Want to learn about our in house print offerings?  You can learn about that here.  Want to know how we can help you with video?  You can find that here.  And new to our services, we are now offering Web Development Services too!  We are excited to have Eric Dingler help us with this new service.  If you want to learn about this, you can find more information here.

As a side note, each of these services needs more detail…but that will be coming soon!

Contacting Our Team:  We always have fun with our About Us page, and this one is no different.  We included some testimonials from some great clients AND we have information about each of our great team members…and how to contact them!  You can find that page here.

So that’s what I think!  What do YOU think?  Let me know.  We are excited to continue to evolve and grow to serve you better!

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He Said She Said Podcast Episode 5

Welcome to the 4th episode of the He Said/She Said Podcast with Hasseman Marketing!  This podcast is designed to give an inside look at projects we are working on and the challenges we are facing!    So listen in and let us know what you think!

 

On this episode we talk about…

Trending Topics:  This time our “trending topic” has to do with whether or not kids today should go to college!  Is it a sure thing or is it a “hell no?”  Amy and Kirby talk about the idea that we are living in a shifting time when it comes to college.  How do they really feel?  Listen in to find out.

Weekly Whirlwind:  If you have been listening, you know Amy is knee deep in paperwork on the building renovation.  That process continues as we dig into a few details.  Kirby talks a bit about taking the time to “see the people,” and the good and bad that creates.  He also gives us a sneak peak about a new hire that’s coming to Hasseman Marketing soon.

Question from the Audience:  We did not have a question from the audience this week…so help us.  Let us know if you have any questions you want us to answer next week!

Shout Outs:  Each week we want to give a shout out to an organization or an individual doing good work.  Amy gives a great shout out to a young man serving the community and the country (listen for more details)…and Kirby gives a simple shout out to his youngest daughter Jade.  Why?  Maybe because she helped to get better seats at a concert.  Maybe not.  Listen in to find out.

So that’s a wrap!  We will be back…and we will continue to improve.  Any feedback will be welcome as we try to provide you value!  If you want to subscribe you can do that where you normally get podcasts…or you can head here to follow on Soundcloud.

He Said/She Said Podcast

kirby amy hasseman Welcome to the very first edition of the He Said/She Said Podcast with Hasseman Marketing!  This podcast is designed to give an inside look at projects we are working on and the challenges we are facing!   We will even take a question from the audience each time!  So listen in and let us know what you think!  On this episode we talk about…

Trending Topics:  This first time we recorded this right after Daylight Savings Time.  Here are our opinions on why we need to pick a time (this one) and stay with it!

Weekly Whirlwind:  Each time we will talk about the projects where we are spending our time.  Amy gives the behind the scenes look at her building project (and what a project it is).  Kirby talks about business at Hasseman Marketing…and why we are hiring.

Struggles:  But entrepreneurship is not always roses!  We talk about a couple of things that are tripping us up! Question from the

Audience:  This time we answer a question we get a lot.  “What is it like to work with your spouse?  How do you make that work?”  Listen to our answers and feel free to give us your secrets to success too!

Oh…and want to send us a question for a future episode?  Email us here.

Shout Outs:  Each week we want to give a shout out to an organization we see doing good work.  This time we talk about a couple organizations in Coshocton County.

We will be looking all over for good things to talk about…so if you have an idea, let us know here. So that’s the first episode!  We will be back…and we will continue to improve.

Any feedback will be welcome as we try to provide you value!   Make sure you never miss an update.  Sign up to be a VIP here.

What To Do When You Are Off Your Game

hasseman marketing game winner

It seems everyone I know has been touched by some level of sickness so far this spring.  If you have not been sick (thank goodness), you know more than a few people who have been. It caught up with me for a few days last week too. I am feeling better now (not quite 100%, but I am getting there), but it really knocked me off my game for several days.

During that time, I struggled to call people back because I could not talk without coughing, I did not create as much content, and I certainly was not thinking strategically!  Everything I did made me want to lay down on the floor and rest. I was not myself, and it totally threw me off my game.

Times like this can be extremely frustrating if you are working toward a goal.  For example, I had been working on creating a new fitness routine in the morning and had made some steady progress.  But as the cold got me down, I threw fitness out the window in the name of more rest.  When you do something like this, most people respond in one of two ways.

Not Perfect, So Forget It: 

So many of us start striving for a goal and go full force toward it.  We work out every day.  Then one day we miss…and the entire thing goes out the window.  Jon Acuff talks about this in the book Finish.  He says the most important day is “the day after perfect.”

This is the day after eating perfectly.  That is the day that often determines whether you will keep going. Self Empathy and Determination:  The other way to look at a setback like this is simple.  We are all human.  Things happen.  We can’t change the past.  What we do need to do is start a new routine today.

We need to hold ourselves accountable without beating ourselves up.   So if you have been thrown off your game recently (like me), start today with a new streak.  For me, that routine starts with creating a new piece of content (thanks for reading it).  Now I am going to head down to the basement to get a new streak started there too. Make it a great day everyone!

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I Am Overwhelmed

We all have areas of struggle.  We all have days when we are having trouble keeping up.
As I am writing this, I am a bit overwhelmed.
The good news is, business and life have been “busy.”  I am trying to take every call and attend every meeting.  The phone continues to ring and emails continue to roll in with a “ding” on the computer.  It’s great because it’s what we have been working for…right?
But in the meantime, I want to make sure I continue to do the things that started the activity to begin with!  I want to continue to write this blog.  I want to create more video content.  I want to answer every question.  I even want to write a new book.
Oh…and I want to be a good father and husband too.
I know you get it.  You likely have similar challenges.  But this morning, I got up early so I could get “some things done” and I am overwhelmed.
I don’t know where to start.
As I thought about this, I realized my activity level had just gone up to a level where I was no longer comfortable.  My schedule has changed.  My expectations have changed.  I have (hopefully) leveled up.
Ed Mylett talks about this in a recent podcast/video (you can see that here).  In this piece of content Ed talks about the Thermostat of life.  I love this concept.  The idea is, that you set your life Thermostat where you are comfortable…and where you think you deserve.  So if you have a 70 degree life, and things go bad, you will work really hard to get things back to normal.  It acts just like a thermostat.  It will heat you back up.
But the converse is true.  If you get “hotter” than you are used to, your thermostat will cool you down.  It will bring your activity level back down to where you feel better…more comfortable.  It might help you stay comfortable…but it goes against what you are trying to accomplish.
I think that is what is happening to me this morning.
So, while I don’t have the answers, I need to reframe this in my mind.  Obviously, having lots of activity is a wonderful thing.  And when I feel this struggle, I need to recognize it as progress.
I need to lean in to the struggle.  I will do that today…and keep you posted.
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