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Last week, I attended my second knitting class, where I learned how to knit a scarf.  At first, I thought that knitting would be a breeze! You're just looping knots around giant needles, how hard can that be?  You knit.  You purl.  You knit.  It seems like it's just this repetitive process that once you get the hang of it, you set your brain in a mode of set it and forget it.  However, once you have knitted a sizable length of yarn, you begin to realize it looks more like a polka dot scarf from the many gaps where the fabric should be.  You have to make the decision to either learn how to fix each mistake and refine them in order to make the scarf more appealing to wear, or to keep trucking along, hoping no one will notice the holes.  Well, developing a website can sometimes have the same outcome.  If it's built with the approach to set it and forget it, it will ultimately lead to holes.

If a website isn't built from an overarching brand perspective by making it an anchor that connects with all brand messages and campaign tactics, the site itself can become one big hole! A successful website development process begins with the perfect blend of setting brand objectives, essence of brand positioning, site architecture and creativity based on user insights, technology expertise both from a developmental and SEO perspective and more importantly, a solid measurement strategy and refinement plan.  If you don't begin with a strategy to measure actionable insights to help inform refining and enhancing the site, you'll end up with a lot of holes and not know what to do with them.

 Holes can lead to a user that is lost on the site and can't find the information they are seeking, so they leave, which means you just lost a customer.  It may also mean that if you haven't defined what you want the user to do at your site and tie that behavior to achieving brand objectives, you just lost the reason for designing a site in the first place.  A measurement strategy should always connect the brand's objectives with user insights in terms of what action you want the user to do on the site and then assign meaningful metrics to track success. Therefore, for one perfectly knit Web site (or scarf), create a constant qualitative and quantitative feedback loop to refine and enhance.  Happy knitting with no holes!