Just this week, I had the conversation below … twice.
Makes you think why it is exactly that we want all those numbers, graphs and dashboards…
[client]: Hey, guess what: we are going to redesign our website!
[me]: Great!
[client]: Yes, our website is such a success that we really need to
upgrade it. Just yesterday we had nearly 700 visitors! How cool is
that! We have this really nice website analytics software showing us
all the numbers in real time online with nice-looking graphs and
tables. It was the one thing I insisted on when building our previous
website. Every morning I take a quick look at the number of visitors we
got the day before. Reminds me that we should definitely put that in
our new site as well.
[me]: good idea!
[client]: By the way: I started to work out a completely new sitemap. Would you mind taking a look at it?
[me]: Not at all.
- a nice diagram with a maze of blocks and arrows is layed out on the table -
[client]: I took the topics of the current website and re-arranged
them a little. I also added a few new things like a blog and a
searchable event calendar.
[me]: What is the goal of your website? What are the most important topics to you?
[client]: uhm… everything?
[me]: OK, then maybe we could start from what’s important to
your customers and prospects. What are your visitors looking for on
your current website? What pages are they visiting most frequently?
What keywords do they use to find your site in the search engines?
- silence -
How many of our actions do we base on those numbers we can’t live without? Honestly?
