Building an Effective Website – Pt.5

• Jul. 28, 2005

In Part 1, we were introduced to a fictional company that wanted a website. In Part 2, we went into more detail on the site, including picking a domain name while part 3 gave some tips on picking a web host, and part 4 dealt with some issues which arise when picking a designer.

Now we get into the nitty gritty of actually creating your site. This involves a lot more research.

Remember in part 2 when I said to make sure to keep track of your competitors website addresses? You are going to need them because they are going to form the basis for your research.

Now it is time to start picking keywords. These are the phrases you think best describe your product or service and the phrases that people will likely use to find your site.

So obviously, the first thing to do is start brainstorming. Write down any phrase that comes to mind which you feel will describe your site or product or service. At this point its best to think of as many potential phrases as possible so don't limit yourself.

When I'm talking about keywords here I am actually referring not only to single words, but also phrases. So for my fictional company I would want to include single words like "heating" but also phrases like "air conditioning." I'll even want things like "AC" and "A/C" as these are phrases I would expect searchers to use. You can also throw in a few technical terms as some users are more sophisticated and would prefer to use those phrases as well.

A handy way to keep track of these phrases is in a spreadsheet – this way you can have one phrase per line and when you have completed the phrase collection, you can sort the list and remove duplicates. Saving the words in a spreadsheet is also handy for later, when we begin looking at things like potential search volumes.

You also want to look at the phrases your competitors are using. You can do this by first reading through their website and pull out phrases or themes which jump out at you. This is also a good way to get more ideas about your site. Remember to note those things that you like and don't like to let your designer know.

Once you've looked at the words you can see, it is time to look at the words you can't see. These are the phrases which the site owner may have added to try and influence the search engines.

The first place you are going to look is the images. Sometimes you can find words or phrases attached to the images. By placing your mouse over various images you may find these phrases. Only make note of the phrases which apply to your site. Don't worry about ones such as image names or anything not relevant to you.

The next place to look for these "invisible" phrases is in the HTML which is used to display the page.

In your internet browser you should see a "View" button at the top, select this and then select "Source." This will show you the code used to build the page. While some of the code may seem foreign to you that's ok. What you are looking for is words and phrases which you may not have already thought of.

The first place you are going to look is near the top of the page. The page should have a <title> tag – this is the title which is displayed in the very top colored bar in your browser. See what phrases and words are there.

Around the title, usually just below are meta tags. You are most interested in the meta description and meta keywords tag. These too will have words and phrases which may apply to your site.

You are going to want to do this for most of the pages on your competitor's site, as well as on as many competitor sites as you can. By now you should have a pretty comprehensive list of phrases, which is important because you want to be sure to try and reach as many potential customers as you can.

The next place you are going to want to look is a search engine. Since you have a list of likely dozens or hundreds of phrases you are going to want to perform searches for those phrases to see what sites come up for them.

Chances are some of the sites you have already seen will be here so you can ignore these, but there will also be other sites that you may not have thought as competitors which appear here. You will want to use the same procedure outlined above to see if there are other keywords or phrases that would work for you. Look at the site's pages, as well as the site's code to see if there are indeed other phrases.

While this type of research can be quite time consuming, I think now is also a good time to introduce the concept of writing for your site.

By now you should have a pretty good idea of what it is going to take to compete in the search space. You've not only gotten familiar with your competitors, but you've also seen the other sites which may be competing in your industry.

You are now ready to create your own content, unique to you, but trying to hit on those key points using some of the phrases which you have gathered.

At this point we aren't too concerned with how many of the phrases you get on the page, or the keywords densities you have to achieve. Right now we just want to begin writing the pages which will appear on your site.

Your designer should also be able to help in this respect. From the designer you should be able to find out what sections are important and perhaps ready for content and begin writing these pages. They will include the home page, which should be a summary of your business as well as some of the products or services you provide. You will also want to create other pages such as the "about us" page, which will provide a more in-depth description of the company.

This is also the time to write about your competitive advantages.

Back in the first article, I had outlined some of the competitive advantages of the fictional business. Now is the time to write about those advantages. If possible you should try to get a few occurrences of some of those important phrases in there.

Above all, make sure your pages are written for the people coming to the site. Don't worry at this point about how the search engine will interpret the page. Your goal is to make the site as compelling as possible to the people who visit it.

Also, don't worry too much about how good or bad you think it is, you are going to get help later on to fine tune it.

Once you have all the main pages done, its time to move into the product or service pages. These are the pages which are really going to sell your company. Make them as descriptive as you can, without giving away trade secrets. Be sure to emphasize some of your key competitive advantages, as well as illustrate how long you've been in your industry (such as "when we first began our business, more than 20 years ago, we found that there was no other company doing it this way, so we began to").

Be sure to refer to other pages you've already written. This way you don't have to repeat yourself. You can also use these references a little later on to build up the links between pages in the site.

Site size is important and what I'm about to tell you may scare you but it is necessary.

You are going to need about 100 pages to get started.

But before you start saying "100 pages! That's way too many! How am I going to do that!" consider that these aren't book sized pages. Your pages should be around 400-500 words. Longer is fine if they need to be, but if you are getting over 1000 words, consider splitting the pages up.

Look at it another way. You've just finished reading this article, which is over 1500 words. Were I writing this page as an actual web page, I'd be splitting it in 3.

So, if you look at it in terms of word count, you will begin to see that 500 words per page isn't so bad. Also, if some of your pages are short don't worry about it too much. They can be expanded on later if need be.

One other tip – don't forget to save your work often. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to have almost completed a document and the power go out or something and you've just lost all your work. While this may not necessarily help your site, it could save your sanity.

Rob Sullivan
Head Organic Search Strategist
Search Engine Positioning by Searchengineposition
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing