The task of managing their web site for maximum traffic, lead and sales is the most difficult problem for many small business owners. There always seems to be a lot to do and there is never enough time to get it all done.
Herewith I like to highlight the ten essential tips for maintaining a successful web site. If you follow these ten tips your site will do better. There are too many different factors that impact web success but in general these ten tips will always lead to better performance.
• Lots of Relevant Content
• Keep it New and Current
• Do not try to Tricks search Engines
• Have lots of back Links
• Easy to follow Structure
• Make it Accessible to all
• Quality Code and Navigation
• Content keyword in URLs
• User Friendly Style and layouts
• Relevant and Quality Images and videos
#1 Relevant Content
Content is essential key to website traffic
Search engines scan a sites content now - almost ignoring things like meta tags or title tags. The more content you have on your site the more the search engines will like your site but there is more to it than that: people like content too. Many people measure a web site's success by the number of visitors it gets. Why would anyone come to your web site? Do you offer them interesting and informative information that relates to your product or service? If not, why should they come?
Relevant content and lots of it is a key for a successful web site. There is always room for more content on a web site, and you can never have too much. Writing articles about aspects of your industry is a great way to generate content. Make sure you add new content to your web site every day or at least once every week.
#2 Fresh and Current content
Keep it current and update
Having lots of content is not enough but it has to be new and current. The search engines actually like new content your site. They monitor how frequently your site changes as they visit it for indexing. The more often it changes the better your rank in the freshness category.
What constitutes change? All changes help but keeping a BLOG or adding frequent news articles to your web site usually produces such good results. It is also the reason why having something as simple as rotating content and the current date on every page has been shown to make a difference (although the search engines have been getting wise to this kind of tactic)
#3 Don’t try to Trick Search Engines
Don't try to outsmart the Search Engines – You will loose Eventually
Many website designers promise success through the use of tricks, backdoors, and special tactics designed to sneak a web site into a top position rapidly. Search engines are constantly battling to defeat this. Why play the game? When the search engines find the cheaters they will plug the holes and a rank will immediately be lost. Follow the rule and the Search Engines will reward you.
#4 Back Links
Links both in and out must be relevant
There has been a lot of talk about link exchanges - people linking to others merely to gain a higher rank. If you are going to link to someone and/or ask them to link to you will only be counter productive. Relevant back links from social networking sites and authority sites will help high ranking for your site. You should have relevant links places throughout your web site - on only those pages that specifically the topic that relates to the page being linked to. Unfortunately you can't exert too much control over the way that other sites link to yours but it is worth looking at how a site usually links to others before to specifically go requesting a link from them.
#5 Site Structure
Organize your web for easy read and navigation
Both the search engines and your web visitors prefer a web site that is well structured. The search engines due to their very nature (being computer programs) must break down all web sites into elements based on the structure of the pages. People, so frequently rushing to find the specific information they are looking for, rarely read through web pages but rather scan headings and bullied lists to find the detailed sections of interest. In both cases a well structured site will be far better received than one that is a lot of information haphazardly thrown together. Make headings, use the correct coding tags for them, organize sections of content into groups, and use bold and bullied lists to present key points. Keep in mind when writing paragraphs of text that most humans will not read them unless they are specifically titled with a headline that matches what they are looking for.
#6 Make It Accessible to All
A web site that speaks to all is better then a site that only speaks to some.
Tips #6 and #7 are closely related: The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides a list of guidelines for how to create web sites that are accessible to as many people (and systems) as possible. Think about your web site - can someone with a visual disability (perhaps even something as simple as colour-blindness) still get information about your product or service? If not, how do you feel knowing that you have just excluded a vast segment of the population from accessing your web site?
There are many simple ways that you can ensure your web site is accessible to people with special needs. A group of simple tests for the sites content and design that ensure your product or service is presented to the widest possible audience. The specifics are beyond the scope of this document - but be sure that you check with your designer to ensure that your site design and code is following accessibility guidelines.
#7 Quality Code and navigation
Well coded web sites perform better.
Many small business owners don't have too much control over the code used to create their web site - but it is still important to know how important it may be. Standard compliant code that has been checked for errors is easier for the search engines to assimilate. It is more widely visible across varied platforms (computer types) and in different browsers. Websites on word press themes and other blog platform ranks very high in search engines.
#8 URLs
Your Url should have the keyword of your content Niche
Professional web designers should already know this - but if you are using a content management system to build your web site, or portions of it, it is important to understand the significance of the URL used to access pages on your web site.
Search engines look at the address of every page on your web site and try to extract key-words from the content of the url. For example, you may have a page about "Dog Training" your website should be like www.dogtraining.com or www.yoursite.com/dogtraining. This is a fairly subtle point but makes a significant difference for most search engines. It can also make it much easier for people that are typing in a URL to access a specific page of your web site.
#9 Type Style and Size
Looks do matter – but may not as you like…
Your style should be simple - ensure the style of your site makes it easy to read. Avoid things like black backgrounds with white text (inverse text is harder to read) ALL CAPS (humans read by identifying word shapes - writing in all caps forces people to read every letter and quickly becomes annoying - plus on the net it is used as an typographic method of indicating you are screaming) You should also ensure that visitors with the various types of colour-blindness can still actually read your navigation.
#10 Quality Images
Your Images Should be Relevant to Content or the products that you are selling.
If you are selling something that has a visual representation - then professional looking photography is key. Even a multi-million dollar resort will not look good if the photographs are amateurish. If you care about what you have to sell, then it's worth investing in some professional photographs to show people what you have. Remember, on-line people can't get a hold of your product - so you need to give them some really good photographs so that they can feel confident that it meets their needs.
