“Think before you speak,” my mother always told me. Like most adolescent boys, I had trouble following her advice and embarrassing things often spewed from my then hairless and naked lips. And I had some doozies. Like the time I told my crush she looked better in low light. Really low light. (True story.) I digress.

Fortunately modern8 is not a self-humiliating teenager. We have always invested heavily in proven processes. Especially if they make our job easier. That being said, modern8 has adopted a new procedure that gives us that moment to think. We call them Website Evaluations.

What is a modern8 Website Evaluation? Well, I’m glad you asked. In the end, it’s a physical document that contains our professional opinion on what your site should do/say and how to go about making it. How do we come up with that document? Basically, we jump right in and research your existing site. We do a deep dive into your content, check out your code and analytics to see what’s working and what needs improvement.

Next, we make recommendations. We’ll reorganize content, suggest different technologies you may not be using and outline new strategies, if needed. Along with our recommendations, we develop the steps it will take to build them. We try to make the scope detailed enough that anybody could pick it up and know exactly how to execute the plan.

The final section contains the nitty-gritty time and cost. After we’ve had time to think about what we should do, the timeline and cost come out very accurate. And that makes everyone happy.

Taking the time to do an evaluation before plunging into a major site overhaul is the way to go. For a fraction of the cost, and about two weeks worth of work, an evaluation really does save time and money in the long run. And the finished product is far more effective. We’re not teenagers anymore so don’t do something you might regret.