No money? No matter - Improve your website with next to no cash

Editor's Notes

1. Not what I originally planned. Came from a blog post I will link to.
2. Bloated websites Why?
3. Time consuming to maintain
4. often out of date
5. Difficult to change
6. harder for users to find content
7. little quality control
8. no time for strategic thinking
9. An excuse to changeless budget = smaller site
10. Three ways to simplifyRemove, hide, shrink
11. Always try and remove first - more later
12. Hide
13. Shrink
14. avoid politics, create policy
15. The Link On The Homepage That Receives The Least Clicks Will Be Automatically Replaced.
16. Pages That Do Not Meet A Minimum Thresholds Of Page Views And Dwell Time Will Be Unpublished Until Rewritten.
17. Pages that are not regularly updated will be unpublished until reviewed
18. What about all those links? Don’t remove page entirely Remove from navigation Remove from Search
19. approach things differently In the way you think internally But also in how you engage external agencies Nervous about talking about the role of the external agency
20. currently working on two levelsmaintenance and grand projects
21. Maintenance is never going away But simplify your site will help
22. Now is a great time to end grand projects Grand projects are massively damaging
23. They are wasteful They throw out so much that has gone before
24. Financially painful
25. They are slow moving
26. Overly complex
27. Users are overwhelmed by sudden big changes
28. As soon as it goes live it becomes out of date
29. Wrong relationship with outside providers
30. there is a better way
31. need to work in an agile format of short bursts (month long)
32. benefit: prevents old work being thrown away benefit: removes sporadic massive expenditure replacing with lower cost easier to approve ongoing costs benefits: things are much simpler and faster moving benefits: users aren’t overwhelmed benefits: the site remains much more up-to-date in look and feel
33. By including external providers in the sprints you establish long term partnership more on why that is
34. benefit: not tied in for more than a month
35. How does it work in practice Monthly meeting (phone if necessary) Including any outside providers Do some user testing Talk strategically about site Set goals for for month Arrange next meeting
36. But we have an in-house team for that?
37. Shrinking teams
38. To think strategically He provides an outside perspective that comes from working with many different companies like our own. He forces us to look strategically at our business rather than discussing the delivery of our latest piece of client work. He holds us accountable and will challenge us if we fail to do what has been agreed at previous meetings.
39. Help with the details design and content
40. Conclusion...Simplify the site (shrink it)Ditch the big projectsStart thinking strategicallyHave a monthly roadmap