Creating a website that is both informative and visually appealing may seem simple. That is, until you actually sit down to complete a project with a web designer.
You’ll find that many of the web design firms you interview will start off by using lingo that you don’t understand. In addition, they’ll fail to explain how different design concepts might impact your future sales.
Impressions, bounce rates, quality of traffic are all things you need to be intimately familiar with when launching a website that will represent your brand for hopefully millions of visitors.
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Keyword Analysis and Targeting
If you build, or have a website built that isn’t targeting a specific set of keywords, then you’re wasting your time. Building a website, without knowing what to target, is like shooting a gun with your eyes closed.
You’ll have no idea where the traffic is, and you’ll likely never hit it. Don’t let the world miss the amazing content on your website. Instead, take the time to research what keywords your target audience is typing into Google, Yahoo! and Bing.
Clean, Direct and Informational
Many website designers focus on the wrong things when building their website. This isn’t necessarily their fault. The world of web design can be competitive.
Everyone wants to make a website that is ten times more beautiful than the competition. The problem is that beautiful websites don’t always sell. Instead, many of them fail to attract meaningful traffic to their website.
Why? Because beautiful websites oftentimes put art and graphics ahead of content. Content is the information that your audience needs, wants and craves.
People visit a website to get information, not to look at pretty exhibits of modern art. To see an example of what a clean, high-quality site looks like, visit OakWebWorks.com. Their site immediately provides the audience with access to the information they need.
It isn’t about outrageous design, although the site is elegant in its simplicity. It’s about giving a sense of confidence and information that visitors value most.
Related Article: How to Identify and Correct Problems in Your Web Design
Are You Answering a Question?
One of the best ways to climb the rankings in popular search engines is to answer a question that is being asked by your audience. Are you experiencing body aches and pains?
Then visit a popular pain relief site and get answers to all of your questions. If your site can effectively answer the questions that citizens of the web have, then you’re well on your way to building a solid traffic flow from popular search engines.
Is Your Content Fresh?
Creating a website takes time and energy. Hiring a web design firm to build your site is a solid first step. But once the website is built, you need to be able to continue to create meaningful content that is valuable to your audience. So how do you do it?
First, you need to decide whether you’re the best person to be writing about your industry. You may be an expert in your field, but are you gifted at communicating ideas and sharing them with the world?
If the answer is no, then you’ll want to consider bringing in an outside team to help develop your content.
Your goal should be to create at least two meaningful blog posts or site updates every week. This lets the search engines know that the site is alive and active.
An active site is more likely to have up-to-date information, which means your content can more effectively answer their user’s questions.
Remember, a search engine is simply a portal that web users utilize to answer their questions. If you can figure out what questions your audience is asking, and then answer those questions on your website, you’ll generate traffic.
Related Article: Goals First: 5 Things To Consider Before Implementing A Web Design Trend
Create Content That Connects With Other Pages of Your Site
Developing content is great. Updating your website is important. But if you are doing all of these things you need to factor in one more important variable into your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) equation.
You need to link to outside content, as well as other content on your site. For example, if you’re sitting down to develop content that’s meaningful and informative, is there a way to get your audience to stay on your site and look at other content you have available?
This other content might be a sales page where you convince readers to sign-up for a newsletter and potentially purchase your products or service. This could also be an additional story or insight that could appeal to your reader.
Keeping your target audience engaged on your site is critical to earning the respect of search engines. Either way, you need to reference content of value (internal and external) that will enhance the credibility of your website.
Don’t let a conversation with a web developer throw you off course from what’s truly important. How will you get viewers to reach your site and take what it has to offer seriously? Good luck!
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