Avatar News: April 2016

Written By: Mark Rocket
Published by: Avatar Ltd

Greetings All,

This month we’ve given our www.avatar.co.nz website a design refresh and we also gave our pet project www.vegetarians.co.nz a complete redesign overhaul. This happens to be topic of this edition’s main article, amongst our usual assortment of other items.

Reasons To Redesign Your Website

If your website is more than a few years old, then it might be time to think about redesigning or refreshing your website. Here’s a few points to consider:

• Outdated Design Style. Does your website look tired and dated compared to your competitors? Design trends change every few years, so it’s usually easy to spot when sites look outdated.
• Increase Your Conversion Rate. By studying your past web analytics, you can learn what helps to drive your conversions. Take the opportunity to streamline and optimise your content to make it work better for you.
• Improve User Experience. A more intuitive and visually appealing website will translate into lower bounce rates (people leaving your site after visiting just one page) and higher engagement with the key areas of your website.
• Mobile Friendliness. Your website should be able to display correctly and fluidly across a range of devices; from desktop computers, laptops and tablets to smartphones.
• Improve Website Speed. A slow website can compel people to give up and move on. Make the most of graphic and code optimisation, and review your hosting setup.
• Search Engine Optimisation. Improving your website’s visibility in search engines is an excellent way to generate new traffic and business. Review your existing search engine strategy and site statistics to look for new content opportunties.

If you are thinking about redesigning your website or want some design ideas, consider making contact with the Avatar team to discuss your options.

Top Value Pick

Internet Archive. Have you accidentally deleted files on your website and can’t get them back? Or do you want to see how your old website looked 10 years ago? Check out the Internet Archive – it is also a great place to discover what sites were saying on topics many years ago (for example the BBC in Feb 2011). It used to go by the groovy name “Wayback Machine” but “Internet Archive” more accurately represents the immensity and authority of this resource.

Tidbits

Ideas For Developing Content. A useful article on how to develop content for service and product pages; some good pointers here that most sites could evaluate and implement.

The Future Of Search. Another Search Engine Watch article provides an interesting summary of where some aspects of search are heading. In particular, personalised search using digital assistants.

Tesla Model 3. Tesla is coming to New Zealand with the stylish Model 3 electric vehicle priced at around NZD$50,000. It is still a number of years away yet, but it’s an incredibly exciting development for Tesla fans.

SpaceX Landing. After five attempts, SpaceX achieves landing on a floating platform in the ocean. This enables the expensive first stage to be refurbished for reuse, so will dramatically bring down the cost to orbit.

Visions Of The Future. Beautiful space poster designs using a circa-1930’s American tourism poster style. Possibly some of these visions will become reality!