Last week two of our websites won their categories in the Rochester Business Journal’s ‘Best of The Web Awards’ event. Our agency strongly believes that it’s ultimately our clients success that counts and not for the agency to take any credit, but I gotta tell ya – it still feels good!
Rochester Museum & Science Center (rmsc.org) and McQuaid Jesuit (mcquaid.org) are the two sites that won. In fact, RMSC also won the Silver award for all around best site. It’s the strong collaboration with our clients and team effort that really makes it rewarding to be recognized. I think our clients would agree that organizing the wealth of content on their sites and having a strong navigation and content strategy was key to these successful projects.
In fact, the judges noted on RMSC’s site, “They have done a really nice job in presenting the homepage with the most relevant info first. Having more than one entity, it’s clear they thought hard about how to present the planetarium and nature center. All areas of the center can be found above the fold and quickly gotten to.” For McQuaid, they said, “Well-designed site with a wealth of information. Simple but effective navigation.”
When we start new projects, clients will ask, “Well where do we start?” and the answer is with a Discovery Phase that includes uncovering clients goals and objectives, competitor analysis, and just as importantly analyzing the website analytics. It is here that we can get insight on how visitors are engaging with the current site. Documenting these visitor flows, although sometimes tedious, are critical to formulating a successful navigation and content strategy.
It still amazes me how many websites we come across that do not have analytics. If you are not sure if your website has analytics you can go to Google’s Analytics Help Page. If you still aren’t sure, feel free to contact us! We would be happy to check for you. We also offer Google Analytics training that many clients have found useful.
Once you set the foundation for a solid navigation and content strategy, you will then be on your way to developing next year’s ‘Best of The Web’ site!
