FIVE WAYS TO TUNE UP YOUR WEBSITE

Your website has been up for years, but it’s never really changed. It has lots of bells and whistles, but somehow there’s an electronic barrier between you and visitors. It’s hard to read, hard to search, and no one seems to be able to find you online. Good search engine ranking won't help you without a well-designed site, and a well-designed site can't attract visitors if no one knows it's there. Here’s five ways to perk up your content and optimize your site to increase traffic.

Link to Rich Content

More than a third of all websites hide their links from users. They do this either with icons that don’t look like buttons or with word links that aren’t highlighted or underlined. Icons pose a navigation problem because they aren’t associated with text and users don’t know where they lead.

Make text links visible with descriptive titles so visitors know exactly where they're going. Link to the pages for which you want high rankings from all pages of your website related to the pages. The easiest way to get related links to a web page is to link from your own website.

Make the most important pages on your site reachable in as few clicks as possible from your home page. The fewer clicks it takes to get to a web page, the more important it looks to search engines. And don’t be afraid to link away from your website. The Internet is a linking universe. By linking to relevant external websites you’re sharing information and actively participating in the online world.

Make Your Site Scannable

Make the font sizes large enough to read and break up large blocks of text. Ensure that copy always tells users exactly how your site will benefit them. Structure your content so it’s clear, focused, and concise. This lends credibility to your website.

Make the headlines meaningful, not vague and overly clever. Say no more or less than is necessary to get your point across. Break up copy blocks with meaningful headlines and subheads that accurately reflect the ensuing content so visitors can easily scan the parts that interest them. Also use bulleted lists to change the pace of the writing and slow down the scanning.

Be sure to place enough content above the fold to allow your visitor to make a decision about continuing on the site. Don’t make visitors click or scroll to figure out what your site is about. Remember that people visit your website for quick, easy answers to questions. So strip away unneeded elements from pages and focus your design elements to help visitors intuitively navigate your website.

Audit Your Website

Audit your website at least four times a year. Ensure it’s up to date and reflects your current goals. Is the information still accurate? Do all links lead to active pages or sites? Does the site reflect your original goals?

You had a clear purpose in mind when you created your website – sharing information, generating sales, gathering leads, branding your company, etc. When you look at the site, you see these goals communicated, but what about other people? Is it as readily as apparent to them? Because you’re deeply involved in your business, what seems clear and simple to you may not be so obvious to others.

Regularly updating your website is vital to making it a rich and credible source of information and a web destination that attracts repeat visits. The majority of changes will only take a few minutes to make and will not only result in presenting a fresh face to audiences but will also help you achieve higher rankings across search engines.

Get Found

Search engines use mathematical formulas to determine rankings. They change these formulas regularly, so even if you are in the top ten one week, you may be out of sight the next. With so many competitors vying for top spots, you have to constantly tweak and adjust your site to make your landing pages more accessible. And now it’s even harder to rank high because some engines are now selling their top spots.

Get professional help in selecting the best key words, descriptions, and other codes that will put you as high as possible in the listings. Remember, most people never look past the first ten entries, so don’t forget about other types of online and offline marketing. Search engines are an important part of your online marketing strategy, but they should not be your only, or even your most important, marketing channel. There are numerous other ways that are more likely to drive traffic to your site.

One inexpensive way to get noticed is to sign up for social media. Get involved with colleagues and communities found at Facebook, Linked In, Flickr, MySpace and other social networks. It only takes a few minutes to sign up and create an account. The benefits from being involved in social communities are two fold. You can research, contact and collaborate with others in your field quickly and easily. You can also use your profile to promote your business.

Share Rich Content

Being a valuable part of the online community means making it easy for customers and interested audiences to connect to online spaces. Distributing your messages across more channels makes it easier to attract more audiences. Take advantage of the many free distribution channels with the potential to reach entirely new audiences.

A recent report by Forrester and ShareThis details how online users share information. This report, which is part of ShareThis’s efforts to help online publishers better understand how their users interact across their networks, reveals some interesting statistics:

• Email is still primary channel for sharing – 69% of adults cite email as the primary source of sharing information
• Less than 1/3 of online adults said they learned about the new content from generally shared content sources such as YouTube, a wiki, or social networking sites
• 84% of people still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information
• Though the primary motivation for sharing differs, 81% of adults claim that they share to help others – believing that a person will benefit from the information they share
• Sharing increases site traffic 2x, thus increasing ad dollars or revenue for publishers
• Men are more likely to share recommendations and videos than women; 77 percent of adult males and 74 of younger males shared news and web links
• Women are more likely to share products or ideas they like via easy or direct sharing methods (ie texting)

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WE’LL TUNE YOU UP!

DCC can equip you with a striking, functional web presence that cuts through the clutter of cyberspace and grows customer confidence. Our team of web designers, web developers, e-commerce specialists and online marketers will collaborate with you to deliver distinctive solutions.

Want to re-craft your company website? Contact us at 780-428-0411 or click here.