A well designed website will help your users easily find what they are looking for and will make your business look more professional and stand out against the competition. Designing a website from the beginning with Search Engines and your users in mind will help your website to be a success.
Here are some practical tips and examples:
Simplify, simplify, simplify. What is the most important thing you want to tell the visitor about on each page? If a web site has too much information on a page, it ends up being confusing to the user. Additionally, Search Engines actually prefer that you separate topics out onto their own pages, as it sees this as more relevant
to the users.
Visually highlight important calls to action such as your telephone number and email address. Consider using icons to highlight important items on a page. Have secondary interest items such as joining a newsletter or submitting your details for a free ebook.
Set up an email newsletter this is a inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to keep in touch with your customers, notifying them of new products, sales, events, or to send them special discounts for being newsletter subscribers.
First impressions are very important. When people arrive at your web site, you have about five seconds to convince them to stay. On your homepage, keep it simple, communicate what you do and what makes your business different.
Be personal. Use photographs of people and testimonials from happy clients to build trust. Make sure you include your address and phone numbers on your contact page. People like being able to easily contact you and know where you are located.
Use maps. Buyers may not be familiar with where you are located. It s also helpful to have a custom map designed for your site to indicate landmarks that might not be found on Google maps. However, it is also important to link to a Google or Yahoo map so that customers can easily get directions to your locations.
Make sure to do your keyword research before you start building your site. After discovering what users are searching, you should then choose 6 to 10 phrases you want to rank for and try to incorporate them naturally into your page titles and headlines.
Make sure to organize your web site so that it is easy for your users to navigate and find what they are looking for. Clear and logical navigation will help users navigate your site and help them to understand what you do and how you can meet their needs.
Use web conventions. For example, using underlined text when linking and make your logo link back to your homepage. People have certain expectations driven by their experiences of other websites. You need to understand what these are and make sure you accommodate them in your design.
Limit your color palette. Professional looking websites tend to use 2 4 colors. This site uses blue and white. Use color to help highlight important features on your web site.
Author Resource:
John Donovan is a http://www.heathgrayson.com/search-engine-optimisation search engine optimisation expert based in Sydney Australia. He writes frequently on http://www.heathgrayson.com website design usability and traffic conversions. He works for web design firm HGWS Digital Media in Sydney.
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