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Include a detailed About Us
page
The About Us page is a good place
for new visitors and target traffic to find out who you are,
why they should read your content or buy your products, how valuable
your site can be, and also general information about your company,
web site, or you.
It's a good idea to include contact
information or at least a clear link to your Contact Us page.
Keep concise and accurate. People want to read about you but
they don't want a novel. Add important information on this page
and point them to other pages for more in depth coverage.
Include a Contact Us page
Visitors (shoppers, target traffic)
need an easy way to get in touch. Have a clearly marked link
for contact information and include every avenue you receive
communication through. Telephone and fax numbers (both local
and 800), e-mail addresses, physical addresses, etc. all should
appear on this page.
To help navigate further, clearly
indicate which contacts go where (i.e. Admin, Tech, Sales, etc.)
This will decrease frustration on both ends and allow better
communication to flow. You want to show your visitors that you
are competent and friendly, being easy to contact is one of the
best ways to accomplish this goal.
Add a News, Press Release,
Blog, and/or Articles Page
These pages inform customers
of current events, products, endorsements, and other company
happenings all in one place. Make sure to maintain these pages
with fresh content that is reader friendly so your target traffic
is more likely to come back, bookmark your page, and they may
even provide word-of-mouth advertising. Free advertising!
As a bonus, search engines love
these types of pages. New, fresh, relevant content is the stuff
of search engines (well, there's obviously more to it than just
content). Each time a search engine spider crawls your site and
find new content it ups your chances of ranking higher in the
organic search listings. More free advertising!
A Relevant Page Title
As uninteresting as this may
sound your page title holds a lot of weight. If you're unfamiliar
with a page title it is the name appearing in the blue bar across
the top of the page. If your says something like "Untitled
Document" I'm talking to you.
Page titles should be different
for every page in your site. They should clearly and accurately
describe your page, and you should try to use keywords in the
page title.
Search engines display the title
of your page on SERPs. The catchier and more accurate your title
the better the chance you'll hit target traffic.
A Relevant Page Name
Again, not so interesting as
flashy designs or up-to-the-minute content, but it's a necessity
to get your target traffic to your page to see or read the goods.
It's better to have straightforward
page name showing in the URL than names with ? or other symbols
and numbers. For example, a search engine will go to http://www.yourdomain.com/about
us.htm It will only go to
the - in http://www.yourdomain.com/aboutus?094837 . You want
search engines to find your pages. You also want humans to be
able to read your names. Keep it simple and clean.
Good Grammar, Correct Spelling,
Complete Thoughts, Sentence Structure
Everything you were supposed
to learn in grade school, use it now. Not only should your site
have relevant content - the more the better - people should be
able to read your content. Choppy or runon sentences that seem
to go nowhere cannot provide the type of readership concise,
correct sentences can.
Misspellings, wrong word usage,
bad grammar are all distractions. You do not want to distract
your readers, you want to captivate them. Slang and derogatory
language also distracts. If your site is a business site avoid
slang and offensive language all together - unless that's your
selling point. Jargon is different, just don't confuse readers
more than necessary.
If you aren't in command of grammar,
punctuation, sentence structure, etc. or if you'd rather focus
your efforts elsewhere, that's fine. It's a good idea to beg,
plead, hire, or force someone else to take care of this part
then as ignoring the problem won't make it go away though it
may have that effect on site traffic.
Professional Design, Colors,
and Images
Design should be implemented
with usability in mind. Not all visitors will be as web savvy
as you'd like, create easy navigation and links to all your pages.
A search bar for your site is also a good idea.
Colors should be inviting, not
blinding. Use colors to emphasize your brand, product or content.
Don't overpower the visitor with colors. Use colors to make text
pop without being distracting or hard to read.
Images should be friendly and
relevant to your site. Images of people work better than objects
and clip art rarely has a positive effect. Make sure your images
can load within a reasonable amount of time, you don't want to
lose visitors because a single image caused an incredible amount
of load time, or worse froze the visitors browser.
Make Sure ALL Links Are Working
Links
This should be a no-brainer,
however it is always a good idea to check and double check your
links. Fix any broken links A.S.A.P. Your reputation counts on
it.
Think of any site you've been
to with a broken link. Disappointing isn't it? You probably left
or at least had a negative image about the company. Avoid this
mistake and check, recheck, and check your links again.
Use Your Log Files
Log files offer a plethora of
information on your web site, your visitors, what works and what
doesn't. You can't afford to miss out on this information - if
you can afford it you shouldn't anyway.
Best idea: Get a program that
converts the lengthy text into readable documentation. It'll
save you time and energy while getting you the information you
desire. Log files will describe customer behavior, they will
show you broken links, and you'll see where customers flow freely
and where they abandon the site. The invaluable information is
at your finger tips. Use it!
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates
These can be used on any site
asking for sensitive information. Not every web site needs this,
however if you plan to collect any visitor information it is
a good idea to have some SSL pages. Though not every page need
be SSL.
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.
About the Author: Kristen Owen,
CEO of ContentWorth.com has written quality, unique articles
for years. For information on articles and other services please
visit http://www.contentworth.com
