If you haven’t already walked a mile in the following shoes, it’s probably only a matter of time before you try them on for size: You’ve been cobbling together your new or revamped dream website — or at least one that your eight-year-old doesn’t roll exasperated eyes at every time. It’s taken you anywhere from several weeks to several months, maybe even a year or more, crammed into what little time you’ve got between clients. You’ve viewed and re-viewed those pages more times than Imelda Marcos made shoe purchases. Hooray, you’re ready to go live!

Not so fast.

You’ve put in way too many hours and resources to skip an important final step before your website’s runway debut. A few hours of fresh review from an objective, outside expert on advisor websites can add enormous value prior to launch. Here are some of the more common issues that often are glossed over by an internal final review. (For that matter, many of these same principles can be used to review your published site. Unlike a printed brochure, it’s usually easy to make website improvements anytime!)

What Your Site Says About You

Does the content on each and every page deliver your desired message? While your website may differ from the traditional print brochure, plain speak is still plain speak. Is your content well-written? Is it grammatically correct and typo free? Does it flow well? Here are things to look for in your messaging:

• Is the voice consistent within? For example, it creates disharmony if some of your pages address the site visitor in second person (you/your) and others are written in third person (the client, his/her). Is your firm Alliance Business Corp. or ABC? Are you John or Mr. Smith? Or have you switched all around? Your site may be particularly vulnerable to inconsistencies if you’ve compiled content from several contributing authors.
• Is the voice consistent without? Does your site language complement the tone and messaging used in your other corporate communications? If you’ve got a tagline, a logo and corporate colors have you incorporated them?
• Are you saying it with style? Do you use “%” or “percent”? Do you refer to U.S. or US? Do you end your lists with or without a comma? Are your bullet lists punctuated or not? Or, as is often the case, does your content contain a mishmash of style inconsistencies? Clean style is a subtle but important hallmark of quality.
• Is each page inviting? Can you improve on readability by breaking up overly dense paragraphs or even pages, adding guiding headlines and subheads, using bullet lists for quick reference or replacing text with images where appropriate?
• Are you missing anything obvious? While you want a distinct site, visitors expect to easily find standard information, such as your bio and firm history, your philosophy, your services, your client niche(s) and your contact information. Is it all there and all obvious?
• Is your content current? If you started working on your site a while ago, some of your content may need to be updated before going live. For example, you may have posted an old issue of your newsletter. Your bios may have changed, or you may have cited data that has since grown stale. Is your copyright current?
• How do you compare to others? Is there anything that’s just too cliché? Or, on the flip side, is there something that’s so off the beaten track that it may backfire on you?

Ghosts of Revisions Past

Particularly if your site has undergone several revisions, left-over language, functionality or layout can come back to haunt you. For example:

• Unplanned duplication – You may have moved some content to a new page but forgotten to delete it from where it was. Intentional repetition can help emphasize key points, but accidental repetition detracts.
• Important gaps – Conversely, new content may have been added without smoothly blending it into your site’s overall presentation. A fresh eye might notice a gap.
• Missing or extra references – You may have referenced content that you’ve since removed, or added new content that isn’t properly referenced. If you’ve already read through the site 1,001 times, you may not catch these kinds of communication break-downs in both the content as well as the site functionality.

Of Form and Function

Let’s shift from what you’re saying to how you’re delivering it. You’re so close to the project, it’s easy to miss navigation, functionality and design issues that a fresh viewpoint may readily spot.

• Does your site flow logically? No matter what you have in mind, some visitors will refuse to stay on the path. It’s important to have outside reviewers wander around your site and let you know if something just doesn’t seem to “work right” along the way.
• Are your hyperlinks defined properly? A common error is hyperlinks to outside resources that don’t open in a new browser. This is important to fix for two reasons: (1) It will keep visitors from accidentally shutting down your site when they close the outside link, and (2) for legal purposes, it helps you maintain an arm’s length relationship to outside sources.
• Are your layouts consistent? For example, as you consider various page layouts, you may end up with inconsistent paragraph styles, fonts, colors or other style mismatches. With today’s CSS (cascading style sheet) designs, this is less likely than in the old days, but it can still happen, and it erodes overall quality.
• Is your design optimized? An outside vantage point can find other design concerns that may have been internally overlooked, such as headers that are too small to easily read, color uses that won’t work for someone who is color blind, stock photos or clip art that may not speak well to the intended audience, and other general design issues for which professional input may be useful.

Odds and Important Ends

There are a host of other considerations that can make the difference between a site that will plod along versus one that’s going to hit the ground running.

• How’s the view? Does your site look good on most common browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari? Does it display okay on current common screen sizes? Are all your images crisp and clean, with no jagged edges?
• Do you have a “Favicon”? That’s the little icon you see in the browser address field at upper left that is specific to your site. For example, on Dimensional Fund Advisors’ site, it’s the little red triangle portion of their logo. Tell your site designer you want one of those!
• Are you up to speed? Especially if you’ve built in a lot of imagery using Flash, does your site still load fast enough that it’s not going to frustrate your visitors?
• Are you easily found? Search engine optimization is a subject of its own, which I’ve covered in several past Plain Speak issues. To summarize, there are many ways you can make your site friendly and accessible to both human and search engine (“web crawler”) viewers, although achieving both can be a balancing act. Start by incorporating the keywords you want to have associated with you and your services into your content, key headings, and the alternate text for your images.
• Are you covered? Last and never least, make sure you have proper disclaimers and disclosures to protect your legal interests and regulatory obligations. On this, it’s best to seek the same legal advice that you would for any of your other marketing materials.

Walking the Walk

So, before you give your new or upgraded website its marching orders, it’s a good idea to have an outside, objective specialist put it through its paces. A final, fresh walk-through can ensure that your site is well-equipped to go the distance, and serve as a pleasant traveling companion, to boot.