Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Like graphics, your website’s content is a reflection of your brand. You don’t want customers to get the wrong idea about your company because your pages are filled with poor grammar, irrelevant subjects, and downright long, monotonous articles. Since content can affect your SEO, conversion and stickiness, it should be searchable, relevant, interesting and fresh with regular updates. Here are a few tips to reviving your content:
- Focus on your audience. Put yourself in their shoes by asking:
- What would they like to know?
- How will this (product, service) benefit them?
- Use keywords, but only where they are relevant. Avoid keyword stuffing, it not only makes for an unpleasant reading experience, but search engines may penalize or ban your site.
- Keep customers coming back by keeping your content fresh. Update regularly by:
- Posting new products, along with new ways to use them.
- Post seasonal promotions, this is a great way to get your customers to keep checking back.
- Post a blog offering service/help information instead of strictly sales.
- Make it interesting by:
- Making the first sentence an attention grabber.
- Keep it short and simple
- If possible, use tone and show character so it’s not like reading a textbook, especially if it’s for a blog.
- Format paragraphs so they are easy to read.
- Use bullet points lists
- Break up long paragraphs into short, concise ideas
- Use subheadings
- Check grammar and spelling
Given that the average time spent on a site is 56 seconds, make the most of your content by ensuring that when a potential customer visits your site, your message is crystal clear.
Tags: seo, website content
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Website Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Your website should be more than just pretty, it should deliver results. Here are a few factors to consider:
1. Determine your site’s goal: what do you want your site to do? For example:
- Sell products (ex: amazon.com, Etsy.com, theawesomer.com)
- Pre-qualify & Produce Leads (ex: car dealership sites, real estate sites)
- Provide information (ex: petfinder.com, webMD, treehugger.com)
- Customer Support (ex: help.com, apple support)
2. Design
- Great design (professional, innovative) helps establish credibility
- Harmony & flow. Everything should work together to create one clear message
- Organize pages so they make sense to the first-time user
- Colors & graphics should reflect your message, and fonts should be easy to read
- Create a call to action- what do you want visitors to do on your site? Make a purchase, fill out a contact box, leave a comment, etc.
3. Usability
- Easy to navigate
- Loads quickly- be wary of lengthy flash intros- although pretty, they take a while to load and many times are irrelevant to the message of the site, contributing only to the aesthetics. You don’t want your clients to go to another site simply because your site takes too long to get to the stuff they are looking for. Also search engine bots don’t read flash.
- Keep content simple, easy to understand and concise.
- Make it easy for visitors to participate in your call to action with features such as a contact box on every page.
4. Stickiness
- Maintain repeat visitors by keeping your site fresh with regular updates & new info/products.
- Encourage visitors to join or subscribe to your social networks, consider giving them an incentive such as a coupon.
5. Tracking & Searching
- Use Google Analytics (it’s free!) to track your site’s performance. With this info, you can see which pages retain traffic and which ones need to be revamped.
- Make your site easy to find with either PPC or SEO. Since only 28% of users bother to go beyond the first page of search engine results, if you rank on page two or three you might as well be on page 65.
Tags: ppc, seo, Website Design, website tracking, website usability
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Website Design | No Comments »
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