Blog - Web Site Content Reviews

This blog entry is in part a self-promotion, in that it looks at the TWS approach to web site content reviews, but its actual intention is to look at how web site reviews are done.

This is being written after pottering about considering how people actually review web sites for content and quality etc, especially after years have passed since the words and images were first created, if at all.

In short, all web sites broadcast information that over time might change. However, updating that information is something that often never happens. In many cases there is no critical need to update the information, however, for any organisation with a mind for quality, review of that information should be a priority at periodic intervals to make sure that nothing is out of date or wrong and to identify areas to improve on what is said.

However, the process by which that is done is often poorly conceived and at the least not ideal. In considering this TWS has broadly defined three types of reviewers:

1. The Browser
2. The Printer
3. The TWS Quality Customer

The last category sounds very much like blatant self-promotion, but its actually quite a reasonable category header, which I will explain.

The Browser

This is a customer that might opt to browse the website and make note of any changes. This might be remotely, or even at a site meeting sitting around a conference table, feeling all important. They will start at the home page, and read it aloud and suggest changes and make notes, and then might go to the about page, etc. This is a natural way to do it, however, in short, they will soon run out of steam, get lost in the site, forget where they have got to and what pages they have done, miss entire sections out because the links were in a footer or in a deeper page and simply run out of time.

This is how most people approach updating content on a web site, and it could be argued that that is good enough, and who cares, its just a web site.

This type of user will actually be far more likely to resolve the issue by simply having a new web site done.

This type of review is the most common.

The Printer

Some customers have a little more insight into the issue and will elect to print out the entire web site and make notes etc. This approach is superior to the first for the obvious reasons. However, it is still flawed because there is the chance that the person printing out the site will miss certain pages, further, the print-outs lack the physical qualities of actually being looked at on the screen, and most importantly, only the person that printed the pages out has the copy and any notes will be rough notes that will be scribbled, illegible and squashed into margins. However, its still a viable way of do it.

The TWS Quality Customer

Moving swiftly on to the TWS Quality Customer, you might be thinking, that sounds like tacking marketing. However, this process is quite important. To start off with a TWS customer will be using the TWS COUNTA which means they have access to certain features such as the Quality page, see thumb. This page actually draws its information directly from the server which means that it covers all pages, including ghost pages that have no links but might be in the search engines. Obviously that overcomes the issue highlighted in the first two examples as pages won’t be missed out.

It's worth noting that WordPress sites don't offer this functionality.

Secondly, it provides all the pages in a list order, which amongst many things allows the reviewer the option to see how many pages there are and how long it might take and most importantly, work methodically through the whole site.

Most importantly, it allows the reviewer to deal with one page at a time and instantly convey notes to other parties that might also be involved in the process. For example, on a page showing employees, a note could be made for the HR person to check the details for each of the people shown there and consider who should be added or removed.

This also allows for changes to be made incrementally, for example, a reviewer might get through five pages at a sitting, and then return to the job later, maybe a week or month later, knowing exactly what has and hasn't been done.

It also allows the reviewer to skip pages to speed up the process or prioritise important pages, with the confidence that they can come back and deal with the skipped pages later.

Some Details

Whilst this blog is not designed to promote the TWS Quality module for web sites, rather to consider how web updates are carried out and their importance etc, its worth noting in short how the TWS system works. Essentially each page has an entry in a web base list, see thumb, and in that section there is a quick link to the page, the reviewer then clicks the link, looks at the page, reads it, and notes any changes, either entering them in the text area provided or otherwise, and then selects the pass or fail options with or without advisories. This essentially creates four results each of which are colour coded.

So, in short, the intention is to get all the entries to be green. They start as red. This is a simple way to do it and allows for quick access to non-conforming pages, ie pages that are not green, so the reviewer can specify appropriate actions.

Clearly this is carried out in conjunction with TWS, but the instructions might relate to any party, for example, something for the reviewer to do next week, something for TWS to do or something for another party to do.

An important consideration is that when done properly, actual changes would be done later, so the review process is simply designed to identify what needs to be done, not to actually do it. This is another failure of the first two methods, as customers will often try to rewrite content at the review, taking up a lot of time, rather than flagging it for update, and setting it to orange, for example, and then updating it later when they can focus on it, and then flagging it to green.

For large sites and companies, a page might be owned, in principle, by one person whose role it is to complete the objectives for that page and set the entry to green. For example, update all product pdf files for a given page.

Obviously SEO can be handles in this process, so if you have a page designed to dominate for a given set of keywords, this can be reviewed at the same time, leveraging other COUNTA features such as the rankings module.

TWS Management

It is worth noting that you are not required to review your site, but if TWS is managing your site for you, this is one of tools used to do that. However, only you can state what needs to come out and what needs to be added, for example, removal of old processes and addition of new ones.

New Sites

This process is also good for new sites as each new page can be checked for quality from the start.

What This Means For You

In short, if you have read this blog entry then you should be thinking about how you update the information on your web site. Clearly if you use TWS this should be a little clearer, but if you dont, clearly you have the option to move to TWS and benefit from this process.

Not only that, but you would have the support of TWS in reviewing your site, which is often enough to provide the motivation to not only do it, but to do it properly.

So the question really, could be, when was the last time you actually read each word on your website? Do you recall what you have said?

Brochure Quality

Combined with the TWS Brochure Quality approach to web sites, this allows you to deal with your customers in confidence. The knowledge that if they print your page out for reference, that they will print out a page that looks good, that you might give out at an exhibition, and not something with bits missing and navigation elements that help no one, and most importantly, that you have quality verified at a given time and have the time stamps to see.

Next Steps

So clearly, your next step is to call TWS and become a customer. Alternatively, you could browse through your web site page by page, and being the smarty that you are, find and read everything without missing anything out or getting lost, or even print it all out and check it all manually.

Obviously the TWS approach is not so critical that you can’t update the content of your site without it, but it's hoped you will see that this is a really good way of both doing it, ensuring you do it properly, allowing you to do it over time and to share that process with other parties.

Alternatively you could just call TWS on 97745 466608 and ask us to take over your site and do it all for you. Its your time and money.