The most specific customer requests I came across are really just case studies – that I consolidated and that make me anticipate future problems or changes of a website.

Anticiper!

 

Here is  a small selection of digital anticipations:

  • The 404 page: Even if one wishes to avoid to use it, when  a website is updated by the users any URL error can easily occur. Even if you are working with the best of webmaster. Preventive maintenance on your infrastructure may still require reboot or break for updates of spam for example. Finally, it is quite possible that a third party website may use an old URL (to fix that see below the redirection section)

▸▸ My advice : Revise the content of 4O4 page: It must contain an introduction message of the company, the main navigation, customer service number or hotline and  a link to the main publications of your website (hosted on third service) such as the catalog and the annual report or the latest releases.

  • The URLs of pages : As I said in a previous article the web is nothing but an addition of layers of information. But during the life of the webite , the URL must be kept and its evolution predicted  (shutdown of an activity or product happens so quickly!).

 ▸▸ My advice : Having a logical hierarchy in the construction of the URL. Indeed, minimum of 3 numbers  present in your URL for its  submission to Google News. In  Addition, if you design this codification with regards to your activity or your products, you will be able to redirect  from the old URL of a product to its new version more easily.

Finally, Google Webmaster Tool will identify  the URL of the  error pages from third-party website, in that case, either you contact them for having the website “clean” URL  (time consuming) or can setup an automatic redirections  (with your 301 redirect Server Administrator) towards the correct destinations.

  • Protecting your brand on social networks : Imagine your marketing department  alerts you on the fact  that your main competitor is very active, recruiting and / or increases loyalty through social networks.In the past, the strategy was consisting of pretending that nothing was happening. It was a good way to be obliged to manage account and maintain them. Another problem, even more important, is the brand squatting on that type on social networks.

▸▸ My advice : Some tools allow you to control brand names on social networks. And to anticipate the availablity and the compatiblity to your media to meet your brand and your targets, book them  to manage a community.

  • The statistics of your website : Imagine the most This is the month of the most important of the year, the one when  the number of visits, sales and prospects exceeds the average figures. In that case, 2 problems may arise: If your r web analytics tool experienced problems or if you made changes in your websites that had a side effect on you analytics markers, you may have wrong data.

▸▸ My advice : Two web analytics tools are better than one! One external and one internal service will allow you to secure the system in case of problems. Moreover, if the figures of one service seem odd or abnormal, you’ll be able to compare them with the second tool to understand the problem.

In conclusion, expect the unexpected, anticipating evolutions in the market or in Internet, these should be the objectives to set in order to gain effectiveness and serenity with you web analytics service providers.