Building an Effective Website Pt.6
- Aug. 4, 2005
In this series of articles, we decided to go back to basics when getting into the web space.
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. Part 4 dealt with some issues which arise when picking a designer, and in part 5 we introducing writing for the site.
Today we're going to look at what you can do to improve your site's performance. Not only in the search engines, but also in the site visitors eyes.
By now the site construction should be well on its way and you should have a bunch of content pages to put there. You are in close contact with the designer and should have agreed upon a look and price for the new site.
You should also have at least the main site pages complete as well as some product or service pages. Remember, you want at least 100 web pages but also remember that those pages don't have to be like book pages.
Once you have the basis for your site it's time to unleash it. But not to the search engines, we aren't ready for that.
You want other people to take a look get your friends and family to go to the URL and check out the site. Don't be afraid to ask their honest opinion.
Be sure to get them to be as brutal as they can be and pick it apart. In the end that will be good for you.
Remember this may be painful; after all you have invested a lot of time and money into the site. However, chances are that if your friends and family don't like aspects of the site then the average user may not like them either.
Make note of everything and don't be afraid to prompt them. Ask them what they think of the colors of the site, the font style and size. How easy is the navigation to use? How easy is the site to read overall? Is the text compelling or too dry? How easy is the conversion path (i.e. if the goal of the site is to collect leads, then how easy is it for someone to submit their information)?
These are all the types of feedback you want.
Once you have gathered the feedback, it's time to go back to the designer to fix design issues, and time for you to rewrite some content if need be.
And don't be afraid to go through this process a few times. Make the recommended fixes (if you can) and go back to your critics again. Once you've ironed out most of the rough spots you are ready to move on. The more critics you can recruit the better the end result will be.
As a side note, it's probably a good idea to have a link on every page of your site asking your visitors to provide their input into the site. "What do you think of our site please tell us!" is a great way to encourage feedback from the average web user.
It's also a good time to ensure you have some optimization in place. Remember when you were writing your pages to target themes and keywords? Now you want to make sure those same themes and keywords appear in your meta tags, and if possible, on some image alt tags.
You want to be sure you have at least 2 meta tags, plus the title, in each page. The title tag should appear immediately after the <HEAD> tag and the meta description should follow this. The meta keywords tag should also be used and it should be placed right after the meta description.
So your head tags should look something like this:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title goes here </TITLE>
<meta name="description" content="This is where you write a brief but compelling description of your page.">
<meta name="keywords" content="insert keywords here with no punctuation try to use 2 to 3 phrases only">Now, there will be those in the industry who argue on certain points, such as the order doesn't matter, or you should use commas in the keywords tag. While these may be valid, overall my experience is that this is the proper order for most search engines.
Once you have completed all these steps, you should have a fairly well optimized, user friendly website, which was the goal starting out.
Next week we get into how to get your site listed in the search engines.
Rob Sullivan
Head Organic Search Strategist
Search Engine Positioning by Searchengineposition
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing
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