Hi friends 👋🏻

For the last few weeks, in between client projects, I've been working on something different.

Something that will help get some of my processes out of my head and my notes, AND that I hope might help people like you in figuring out where to start with improving an existing website.

This week, some thoughts about this project, and fun video towards the end that I bet will tempt you to go check what ChatGPT has to say about your organization.

Want links to recent emails or a sign-up link to share? Go to The Digital Landscape sign-up page​

Assessing a website

Here's the situation:

Someone reaches out to me, and wants to talk about working on their website, typically to fix a specific problem, or add some functionality.

My response, out loud, is "great, let's get on Zoom and we'll pull up your website and figure this out!"

But behind the scenes, I don't want to jump straight into implementation mode.

I need to understand the whole website, and more importantly, the organization that website is working for. That means starting with the mission statement, the audiences it's targeting, what visitors are supposed to do on the website, and all the technologies, workflows, standards, and vulnerabilities that combine to make the website what it is today.

Some of that I can gather from digging into the website before that consultation call. I have a whole pile of tools and tests I can run from the outside to build a picture of how the website is built and what it contains.

The rest has to wait until I talk with this potential client, when I talk audiences and projects, since I can't see what's missing. Or what workflows are inefficient, or what risks are created by technical debt that isn't being managed.

I want you to be able to do more of this yourself

I've realized that as I standardize and document my process, I can also hand you more tools to do this kind of assessment work yourself.

Based on conversations with clients over the years, I know managing a website can be a stressful experience, particularly when you are not a developer and don't have the support that you need.

The toolkit I'm putting together guides you through six sections, prompting you to fill out simple information about your website as you go:

1. Strategy (the audiences you're targeting, and the content on the site)
2. Visibility (in traditional search and AI-based tools)
3. User experience
4. Conversions
5. Trust and legal compliance features
6. Technical health

At the end, you'll get a scorecard summarizing each section, and recommendations for where to focus your energy first.

Here's a sneak peak you can try today

One item I've added to my list more recently is a quick high-level check on what a user might see when asking an AI tool about your organization.

I've always encouraged orgs to look at their brand search results page in Google Search. And in today's world, it's important to keep an eye on what tools like ChatGPT might be saying about you too.

This is a super simple exercise. It will take you one minute to do (although potentially more if start digging into the suggested follow-up prompts ...)

Report back! Were you surprised by what ChatGPT had to say about your organization?

Until next time ✨

— Ed Harris (your digital strategy guide)

Connect on LinkedIn

​