There are millions of web sites out there and just
about anyone can build one. What is key is building a website that is
search engine and user friendly and that gives your visitors a reason to
stay or want to come back. I thought that I would put together a brief
Top 10 list of things that I feel web sites should have that I hope you
will find helpful.
Weather you're building your own web site or having someone else do it
for you, these are basic, key items that you should know.
If you missed part 1 which was
1) Have an appropriate URL and page titles
2) Have an About Us page
3) ALWAYS have a Contact Us page
4) Check your spelling and formatting, proof
read your sentences
5) The use of images, color and page design
click
here to read last months
newsletter. In this newsletter, we'll focus on the second five things
every website should have.
6) Make sure all Links are
working
Broken links risk a broken reputation. If you've ever gone to a site and
finally found what you needed and clicked on it only to find a broken
link, you know what I'm talking about. Disappointing, right? You need to
double check all links when building your site. It is a direct
reflection of your business and just plain annoying when things don't
work right.
Make sure that who you are linking to are
appropriate for your site and have a good google page ranking ( we
talked about this already in a previous newsletter.) Even if people
don't click them it displays confidence in your site.
7) Add quality content to
your website and update
Having good quality content is
not only important to search engines, it's important to the people that
will be visiting your site. You want to make sure that what you have to
say will hold the interest of the reader and turn them into a customer!
Use your imagination when you're compiling content for your site. It
should be an informative and appropriate, something that people will
want to come back to! It's also a good idea to show that there are real
people behind your site and in your organization and that all company
and contact information is current! Images and/or bios are a good
way to connect personally to your visitor, also.
8) SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
Certificates
These can be used on any site asking for sensitive
information.
Pages requiring e-mail, names, telephone numbers,
addresses, credit card information, social security information or any
other information visitors may not readily be giving up online should be
securely collected via SSL
9) Add a blog, RSS feed to your site
Search engines love these types of pages! It's a
great way to have fresh content on your site on a daily basis if you
choose to do so. Keeping your entries relevant to your site and posting
often aids in
boosting your page rankings....plus it could just be a fun thing
to do! And the bonus is that if you make sure to maintain these pages
with fresh content, your target traffic is more likely to visit your
site again.
RSS stands for Really Simple
Syndication. An RSS is something you can offer on your website or blog
to provide a "news feed" of your information. It's available for
everyone to add to their own "news reader" for free. You can change the
content as often as you like on your RSS feed, also. Again , a great way
to show that there are real people behind your site and help to drive
traffic to you!
10) Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a fountain of information about
your website. It tells you where your site visitors come from, what
pages they visit, how long they stay, what they buy, what makes them
give up, and where they go. Google Analytics tells you everything you
want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact
with your site. You can't afford to miss out on
this information - if you can afford it you shouldn't anyway.
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