I read a fascinating article in NY Times on how people perceive the world based on their language: Does Your Language Shape How You Think? The author makes a very convincing argument that language reflects what the people deem important in the world. For example, in English language gender is often not important. When hearing "I met with my neighbor" , you cannot conclude if the neighbor is a male or a female. In French or German, the gender of your neighbor is immediately known.

Gender-conscious cultures assign gender to inanimate objects. For example, for a German, a bridge is a "she", but for a Spanish speaking person, it is a "he". The author argues that grammatical genders shape the feelings that native speakers have about the objects. In practice, bridge architecture inherits those feelings. Consequently, we can observe feminine or masculine features in bridge architecture.

And in the last few years, new research has revealed that when we learn our mother tongue, we do after all acquire certain habits of thought that shape our experience in significant and often surprising ways. - source

You are asking yourself now, how it all relates to web design? In my opinion, understanding the difference in perception of your website will save you money and headaches. Let me explain.

Your Website Evaluation

Do a quick experiment and ask 5 of your friends to check out your website and ask them what they think. Do not give them any specific tasks or any direction. I guarantee you, that you will get 5 different responses. These responses will reflect each person's internet experience, their habits and, most importantly, what they do for a living.

Then, ask 5 of your customers to give you feedback about your site and you will get responses that will reflect your customers' experience with your business. It might be surprising to you, that what you thought was important for your customer on your website, is not actually important to them. Like in the NY Times article, their perception of your website is shaped differently from your own. That's why smart marketers conduct customer surveys.

Now, let's make it interesting. Ask a developer, an SEO professional and a marketer to look at your website. In my consulting business, I have hands-on experience in marketing a website, optimizing it for search engines, analyzing data, etc. But one thing I can tell you for sure - I am a developer.

When asked to look at the website, the first thing I do is look at the source code. I can't help myself. Source code is important to me to orient myself in the confinements of a website. From there, I move to the website server configurations, i.e. I look "under the hood" of the website. Notice that I didn't even look at the images, content or layout yet?

An SEO professional will first look at your website rankings with search engine and at most important keywords for your site. It is important to them to see where your website stands in the hierarchy of websites relevant to your business. They will look to see what search engines think of your website as well as other people; they will evaluate links from other sites to your website. They will evaluate your website content, but not images or layout as a main priority.

A marketer, on the other hand, will go straight for the layout and visual appeal of your site. They will look at the content and figure out who it appeals to. They will form opinions about your website colors. And they are the ones who will talk to you about call to action and solving customer problems and telling a story.

Developer, SEO, or Marketer - we cannot help it but show our true colors. We are trained by our experience to pay attention to a website from the point of view of our professions. You, our customer, is trained to pay attention to what's important in your profession. No matter how hard you try, you will miss important things that we will catch.

Tip: Always keep in mind who you are talking to. Do not discuss call to action with a developer. And do not try to reprimand a marketer for messing up the robots.txt file.

Practical Takeaways

First and foremost, decide if you are serious about your website. There is no right or wrong answer. It just has to be an honest one - yes or no.

If you do not care if your website is successful or not, stop obsessing over it. Make peace with the fact that it is what it is. When customers complain about your website, you can proudly say, that it is not your priority at the moment. And that is ok. Stop wasting your time and money on quick fixes and reactive changes. Do some maintenance here and there to make sure links are not broken and the information is not outdated. But other than that, leave it alone.

On the other hand, if you decide that it is important for your business to have a relevant and revenue-generating website, take the task seriously. Hire a professional to get your website in shape. No, your friend, who "dabbles" in web design and SEO cannot be considered a professional. Depending on your goals, hire a person whose experience shaped their vision to see the path to your goal. And don't expect to become a professional in the field after the project is complete. You are hiring a person not to teach you the trade, but to improve your website.

Website Improvement In 3 Easy Steps

If you want a website - hire a developer. If you want more traffic - hire an SEO or PPC professional. If you need better returns - hire an optimizer. The following steps apply to hiring one or multiple people to achieve your goals. You have to do it in the exact order and all of it. Otherwise, it is not worth doing.

1. Hire a professional. Hire several professionals if you feel the need to go with a bigger, more complex website. When you start working with a consultant, tell them your limitations - budget, time, resources - whatever it is. Give them the "box" so they can fit their solution in it. Communicate your expectations right from the start. This is crucial for your project success.
2. Trust the professional you hired. You did your research, you communicated your goals and expectations, you read and liked the proposal. Most importantly, you hired someone to do the job and you are confident they understand what you want. Now it is time to entrust the life and well-being of your website to that professional. Make peace with the fact, that you are not running the show anymore. Don't micromanage. Keep abreast of the progress, but let the professional do their job. When you get the action plan, you will also get an explanation of what to expect when you implement the plan. The outcomes should match your goals.
3. Implement THE WHOLE PLAN. I cannot stress this enough. The person you hired delivered a comprehensive solution. Don't treat it as an a-la-carte list of suggestions. In step 1 you explained your goals and communicated your restrictions. You got an action plan. Know from the start, that no matter what it is, you are going to implement the whole plan. Only then, you can expect results.

That's it. Easy, right? All of us have our baggage we call experience. As professionals, we see the world through the prism of our experience. We speak our own language that shapes our existence and laugh at our jokes that make sense just to us. The reason you, our client, might not understand us is because you speak your own language and have your own jokes. But when you want to be a part of our virtual world and seek our help, our vantage point is better than yours. Let us help you.

What is your point of view? Leave a comment, let's talk about it.