When you spend so much time developing and creating your website, it’s sometimes difficult to get perspective. You are so up close and personal with the online content on your web page that you often can’t tell if it actually looks professional, let alone good.
We’ve all seen websites where we’ve thought, “What were they thinking?” Probably the page creator was thinking too much about the tiniest details of their web page that they couldn’t see that it didn’t have their original intended effect.
A Fresh Set of Eyes
When you are first developing your business or personal website, a good rule of thumb is this: The more people looking at your website, the better. You need to get as many different perspectives as possible so that you can measure how effective your web page is to a dispassionate observer.
You may not have an unbiased view of your website because you have put so much work into developing it. But when friends, family members, co-workers, classmates, and others critique your website, they don’t share your passion for the content. So they are more likely to see flaws that you perhaps can’t see.
Competitive Analysis
Another effective way to measure the value of your web page is to look at the websites of your direct competitors. What do their web pages look like? What kind of content do they include? How are their pages designed? Is the design effective?
If your web page looks like everybody else’s, it may not necessarily be a great thing. Similarly, if your page is way different than anything else you see your competitors are doing, it may be food for thought.
Keeping tabs on the competition and getting a fresh set of eyes on your web pages can help you avoid design errors that can harm the effectiveness of your website.