Good Web Site Design Increasingly More Important
It's imperative for a company to have a quality web site today - but many firms are still throwing up web sites that are just poorly designed or overly complex. Poor navigation (menus and overall site structure) when coupled with low quality graphics is really problematical (!) - online visitors think less of your company as a result which will hurt revenue in the long run. Many think just doing a minimal job is sufficient but they aren't factoring in how close your competition is! On the web any potential customer is only one click away from seeing a high quality web site that is well designed and conveys a quality image.
A good rule of thumb when budgeting for a web site is to assume you will pay approximately R4500 - R6500 per standard website - this should include your graphics design, content development, setting up registration forms, etc. This may sound too expensive for many companies but for better or worse perception is reality in the online world! So, don't short change yourself, put some resources into your web site and be prepared to continue to do so - it's now a vital component of any company's ongoing marketing processes that needs constant upgrading like traditional marketing(PR, print, etc.) materials.
Offline marketing/promotion of your website highly important to the success of your website
I have often been faced with clients who think that once a website has been uploaded and is technically sound, then people should be able to "somehow" find the website. While a website designer can play an important role in marketing the website online through search engine registration and optimisation, the onus is on the website owner to do some intelligent and highly creative offline marketing/promotion of the website.
How then do you go about it? There are two important pieces to all promotion, and they become even more important in promoting your website offline. Just like the online world, your success at offline promotion is going to hinge on putting your message in front of the prospect in the right context – meaning at the right time and when they are in the right mood to perform the action you are looking for, which in this case is a visit to your website. You need two elements for each viral marketing idea – the hook and the context. Once you figure out how you're going to do it, you need to determine where you're going to do it. If the niche and scope of your business won't lend itself well to local leads, passing out business cards isn't going to work as a viral marketing idea. Every site could benefit from offline leads – it's just a matter of how much time and money you want to throw at them.
Obviously the offline world has the constraint of geography, compared to any online based promotion which can be accessed by anyone in the world as long as they have an Internet connection, but then again how many of our businesses have a truly global appeal. The least expensive forms of viral marketing are going to be geographically bound, which can be challenging for some sites.
Simple steps for a useable website
Building a useable website can seem daunting. Here is a quick guideline to help you on your way.
It’s all about your content
To get your website listed appropriately the content of your website needs to be nested between the tags. This way it gets read by the search engines. Your content also needs to be unique and get your point across.What is it about your product or service that is better and different from your competitions. This is called your usp or unique selling proposition and should be conveyed clearly and immediately upon hitting the page.
Make effective use of your title and description tags
These are your two most important tags when it comes to referencing your page content. Meta keywords rarely have any impact what so ever on your pages listings.
Make sure content is well formatted
It is very important to break up your content with italics, bold text, bulleted lists, etc. Well formatted content makes your pages more accessible to visitors but the search engines also. Visitors scan across your page rather than read it so it makes sense to format your page so it can be browsed yet still convey your message.
Proper code
Having proper progamming in place is quite simply a must. Web standards have changed substantially over the years and it is important to make sure your pages validate both html and css. Think of it this way. How effective could you get your point across if you were talking swahili. Your code is no different. Why make it difficult for the search bots to index your content.
Easy on the eyes
Graphical elements play a huge role in a website design as well. You need to make sure you don’t have any extreme contrasts between colors and that you don’t use really bright colors as they are quite hard on the eyes. Your logo or brand should be clearly displayed on the home page and in more than one place.
Design Your Site for Traffic
What better way to start the new year than with more traffic to your web site. Web traffic is a critical part of your internet business and it is imperative that you design it to bring you the most amount of traffic possible.
Designing your site for traffic includes offering good content, easy navigation and a logical flow. Additionally you must also build your site to draw traffic from the search engines because if you can obtain high search engine ranking, you can enjoy free traffic.
It's important to note, however that good ranking won't do you much good without a well designed site and a well designed site can't bring you visitors if no one knows it's there. Both high ranking and good design need to work together.
How do we pull all this together? Let's take a look.
A Word About Design
First of all don't try to be everything to everyone. Design your site around a theme, preferably a niche theme. Don't confuse your readers with links all over the page. Design a logical flow. Lead your viewers to where you would like them to go. Leave plenty of white space and keep your pages organized. Clearly state at the top of your pages what you are about and what you would like your viewers to do.
Secondly, I don't recommend pop-ups. I find that the majority of internet users find them annoying. The demand for pop-up blockers is a good indication that viewers don't want to see them.
Thirdly, offer good content. Provide information on your site that will help viewers solve a problem. Offer information that they might not get elsewhere. Write reviews regarding your products. Write newsletters and articles and most importantly offer something of value for free. Give your viewers a reason to come back. It will also build trust in you.
Traffic Builders
Good search engine ranking can bring lots of visitors to your site. It often takes a few months to rank well but the payoff is lots of qualified traffic. While it's not practical to depend solely on search engines for traffic it can complement your other advertising campaigns nicely. Aiming for high search engine placement is always a plus.
Keep these in mind when developing your site for the search engines:
Domain Names
Choose a domain name that has your site keywords in it. For example, if you're a site about pet care, try to include the words "pet care" or words related to pet care in your domain name if you can.
Keywords
Keywords require research and there are several tools to help you out in this area. Here are my favorites:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
I suggest focusing on only one keyword or keyword phrase per page of your website. This may not seem like a lot but if your site has 20 pages you can focus on 20 keywords. Each page should be considered a landing page for your site. If you have proper navigation on your pages, it will easily allow viewers to see everything you have to offer.
Include your keyword or keyword phrase at the top of your page as well as in at least one header phrase. Also work the keywords into the body of your text as often as you can without sounding redundant.
Your keywords should be in the Title tag as well as in your page description tag. Many search engines no longer look at the keyword tags, but I recommend using them and including the plural forms as well.
Alt Tags
Search engines don't index images, therefore any text on your site that is presented in image format won't get indexed. To solve this problem, you can enter the image description in the ALT tag. To be sure that the search engines recognize all the content on your site, fill in your ALT tags with your keywords. This will boost your keyword frequency and help your site achieve better ranking.
Linking
Search engines will rate your site by who is linking to your site, so it's important to establish quality, related links. This can be accomplished in a few ways. One way is to establish reciprocal links with other like sites. When exchanging links be sure to include your keywords in your site title.
Review the page you are exchanging links with. Be sure it is a site that you find easy to navigate and informative. I also recommend that the site's index page have a Google
PR rating of at least one. This ensures that the site is not being penalized by Google. If it is a penalized site then you could be penalized as well for linking to it.
Include a 'tell a friend' and 'bookmark' script on your site. This gives viewers an easy way to bookmark you and most of all return to your site.
Include a Site Map
Site Maps let visitors know what information you have, how it's organized, where it is located with respect to other information, and how to get to that information with the least amount of clicks possible.
Site maps also provide spider food for search engine robots. This can increase your chances of becoming indexed because a site map allows the search engines to easily visit every page of your site.
A site map works best if you include a link to your site map in the navigation of every page on your site.
Finally, don't let your site become stale. I have found that my search engine rankings improve when I periodically add new pages to my site and keep the content new and fresh. Follow these tips and 2005 may be your year for traffic.