Since many small businesses (especially in today’s economy) don’t want to spend a fortune on testing and research, I was pleased to see Marketing Sherpa’s brilliant new article called “Case Study: Increase Conversions with Simple Site Redesign: 7 Steps” (you can read this article and see creative examples for free until April 15th).  The article provides some great advice to companies looking to test redesigns on the cheap.

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When we take on a web development project or web site build, one service we provide to customers “out-of-the-box” is to code their web site so that it can be easily viewed on mobile devices.  Here’s how we do it.

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Last week, we launched the new Thalhimer web site. For those not in Virginia, Morton G. Thalhimer, Inc. is a commercial real estate company based in Richmond, VA with multiple offices across the state. We redesigned and redeveloped their web site.

The process started with a full web site assessment. We analyzed how their target audience used their web site by conducting usability studies and examining web analytics. We used all of this information to complete a full visual redesign of the web site, and we redeveloped the site to make it easier for customers on both traditional screens and on mobile devices to use. The site is also easier to update — they don’t have to involve the IT group to make changes or add content.

The site uses Expression Engine to control most site content, and integrates with internal databases as well.

See the site at thalhimer.com.

When publishing articles online, there are a few guidelines that help people read your site — use bullet points, write in short paragraphs and offer an article summary. CNN’s web site, though, provides the best implementation of article summaries I’ve seen.

While I’ve seen and even recommended the approach of using article summaries before, I think CNN’s article summaries do a few things very well.

• The summary is located in the right place. The headline is large and attracts attention, and the summary is immediately to the right.
• The summary uses short, one-line bullet points
• There’s a small yet noticeable link to the next article in case the current one does not interest you.

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog post a few days ago about “the magic of low-hanging fruit” and was reminded of the power of fixing low-hanging fruit when redesigning your web site.

You see, when we perform web site assessments, the first thing we look for is low-hanging fruit. Often, fixing these small, easily identifiable issues requires little effort and produces a big return.

If you think your web site is fully-optimized, think again.  I’ve yet to work on a site that doesn’t have some small issues that can be easily fixed.  Understandably, some companies are reluctant to make changes.  I’m currently working with a client whose site won some major awards in the early 2000’s (“back in the day”). They conducted rudimentary usability research and had a great site, but they haven’t changed anything but content since.

Now, years later, they’ve hired me to do a web site assessment.  They are understandably reluctant to totally overhaul their once award-winning web site.  In addition to needing some design updates, this site could benefit from fixing some low-hanging fruit to significantly improve their bottom line.

The most dramatic example I have of fixing low-hanging fruit is an e-commerce client I had about 2 years ago.  The product images on his product pages were so large that they took up a normal customer’s entire screen.  By shrinking the image and moving all pricing information near his add-to-cart button — all of which took 2 hours to change — site revenue improved over 60%.

I encourage you to contact us — we can identify what changes should be made to your site.

Today, we launched a new web site for an author friend of mine, Charles Jones (I call him “Chip”). Chip is a former Richmond Times-Dispatch staff writer who paid his way to Iraq last June to research this book, entitled Red, White or Yellow? The Media & the Military at War in Iraq.

The site contains a video trailer about the book, which we posted on YouTube, and a slideshow of original photos that Jones took while in Iraq. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon and will ship in September. Congrats Chip!

Visit RedWhiteorYellow.com