Category : Website Design and Development
Tips For Launching a New Website While Keeping SEO In Mind
We have potential clients call frequently with the intent of retooling their web site. The redesign is brought on typically by a multitude of reasons: “The design is old.”; “We have a new brand.” ; “We want to get found by more prospects.” Businesses and organizations that come with a goal of creating a successful balance of creative, search and content are the ones we know are serious.
Before moving or launching your new site, read the tips below and take note:
1) Define your goals
A redesign should focus on ways to impact your business, not just look pretty. What that means is every decision, from design layout, site architecture and SEO should be focused on your goals. Determine your goals in two ways:
The first is to determine what kind of traffic you would like to drive to your site.
Keyword research applies here.
Second, determine what you would like your visitor to do when they land on your site.
Conversion planning applies here. Conversion planning is a guide to the hierarchy of your site so that you guide your visitor to the conversion point (be it a page to read, a product to purchase, a form filled out, a phone call, etc.) and take them through a preplanned path to meet your goal – more leads coming through the door.
2) SEO Assest Inventory
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in launching a new site is to not protect your previous and current marketing efforts that have brought you awareness and conversions to date. In other words: great content, keywords you’re ranking with, inbound links to designated landing pages (and all important pages), successful conversion paths. This is SOOO important.
Many web design experts miss this when the design focus is more important than internet marketing. Discuss with your web designer and developer a plan to setup 301 redirects from your previous indexed URLs (the pages Google and other engines know about) to your new site structure.
3) Setup your Site Architecture To Match The Needs of Your Audience (both Human and Spider)
I’ve heard the saying that “spiders are like 4 year olds with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).” With the growing statistic, even of your human audience, of having a total of 7 seconds to make your first impression online, you can see that both site visitors need the ability to consume information quickly. A spider needs to see keyword directed content in the HTML of your page (like meta data for each page and content of the page as close to the top as possible, lean-mean code basically) – a human needs to quickly navigate and consume content specific to their interest. Setting up the site to create strategic landing pages, then drill down to topic specific pages through links (i.e. siloing) is a helpful advantage to delivering clean, clear content to both audiences.
4) Plan for an Ongoing Content Strategy
One of the best ways to grow awareness and traffic to your site and convert visitors is to develop a strategy for ongoing development for content. Quality, UNIQUE content (i.e. do not copy/paste from other sites) is king to attracting your audience (both human and engine spider) and keep them coming back for more. Build content, build your business faster.
Blogs have the history for frequently updated content, and spiders know it….a blog on your website is good. Not a blog as your website…I said a blog on your website. (future post)
5) Have Web Analytics In Place; Monitor Results
The only way to know whether you are satisfying your goal (and delivering results to your business to make up for the investment!) is to track and monitor your increase in visitors and conversions. As a general rule, if your end result is too design focused, you’ll see fewer leads; If it’s too search focused, you’ll see fewer conversions. With balance in mind, results you will have…your boss will thank you for it! Read more on Analytics
6) Test, Test and Test
“Oh testing, how we love thee.” What a way to determine what’s working and what’s not? Become friends with Google Website Optimizer. Testing is like a focus group, a controlled science experiment (9th grade science comes to mind). Testing demonstrates whether the influence your agency, design firm, neighbor or web developer offered is good advice. Let your visitors tell you what works best for them…then adapt 
Bend Oregon SmartGroup Adds Valuable Insights to Website Success
SmartGroup is a local usergroup setup for our Smart Solutions clients and prospective clients. We’ve covered monthly topics such as: SEO Basics, Newsletter Best Practices, Everything Images, Local Search, etc. Throughout the presentations, now offered in a both a day and evening session, we offer insights to best practices and tips and tricks to help our customers succeed.
Although our clients get the benefit of using the advice within our system, truly the SmartGroup is valuable to anyone in Bend, Oregon looking for some additional information about building successful websites and is open to come to a presentation. SmartGroups are free and beverages and snacks are provided!
Since we are on the phone daily answering client’s questions for best practices, we decided to bring education into a group setting and have the opportunity for our clients to learn from each other and discuss various web topics.
So, join us for the SmartGroup (the last Tuesday of every month) and position your business at the forefront of your competition. Signup now or view upcoming topics online!
Quick Web Design Tips To Remember
Web design has changed. The novelty of going to the World Wide Web and exploring this new medium has worn off significantly. No longer are users visiting a site and reading through lines and lines of text or watching humorous animated gifs online.
Nielsen & Loranger’s extensive research uncovered four questions users ask when arriving at any given web site: what site have I arrived at, what are the benefits the organization offers, what does the organization do and/or what are the newest offerings, and where do I go next to find what I’m looking for?
What site have I arrived at?
The URL has been entered, but the name of the organization, logo, and tag line should be displayed in a prominent place. This information should remain in the header and carried throughout the site.
What does the organization do and/or what are the newest offerings?
State it clearly and prominently on the home page. It should not be buried in 500 words of content. Images used should also support what the organization does (i.e. a landscape architect shouldn’t have a photo of a city skyline).
What are the benefits the organization offers?
Get to the point. What separates you from the other thousands of sites offering the same services or products? 70% of users are experienced enough to scan a page for the information they are looking for. Adding visual cues as to the benefits of your site will bring you closer to converting that user into a customer.
Where do I go next to find what I’m looking for?
The navigation should be visible and instinctive to use. Drop down menus work well for easily referencing sub pages. Calls to action should be clearly defined with verbiage like, ‘Buy Now’, ‘Call Us Today’, ‘Fill Out this Form’, or include a video with a big play button icon. The less users need to think or read, the more open they are to suggestion.
If you keep these questions in mind while designing your website, you will be on your way to lowering your bounce rate, increasing user time on the site, and raising your conversion levels.
For further reference in designing user friendly sites, see Prioritizing Web Usability.
Simple Home Page Design – Tips to Avoid and Best Practices
You’re home page is important for many reasons, as it’s linked to most frequently (for small business) and unless you’re coming in from a landing page or internal blog, it’s oftentimes is the first place prospective clients make the first impression of your company. Moreover, it’s an impression that is created in mere seconds while only absorbing 20% of home page information (source)!
It’s also the hardest to design and SEO because there’s the urge to convey everything about your business (which is often not helpful to both visitors and spiders). Every business has to answer the question, “how do I design my home page to: present professionalism and credibility, intrigue customers to click to additional information, be friendly to search spiders, and ultimately convert customers.
Here are a few tips to effective design home page design and typical mistakes that we often see client’s make.
Typical Mistakes
1) Using images that are too large for your content area
2) Having more than 7 main links or long names in the navigation
3) Use of random text sizes, fonts and colors that are different from your brand style guidelines
4) Missing header <h1> tags
5) Not knowing what the goal of the page is and understanding where it lies inside of the overall site goals. (This is the most overlooked and most important!)
Usability Best Practices
1) Use bullets and numbers to highlight text
2) Know design standards and understand when to break them or not
3) Keep link text consistent and clear (all links underlined or all links blue, etc.)
4) Design to your target audience (tween or baby-boomer?)
5) Always be testing! (A/B testing or multivariate testing)
There’s a few in the industry of web design usability and search that stand out. Those are Jakob Nielson and Shari Thurow. At the top of their game, their research and testing is top notch. View the History of SEO interview with Shari Thurow.
Is Your Site Design Getting in the Way of Your SEO?
If so, it’s time for a redesign! Don’t whine about the cost of a redesign, the lost opportunities without effective SEO will cost you far more in the long run. In today’s highly competitive Internet realm, it’s absolutely critical that your site is based on a search engine friendly structure; but what does this mean?
Your site should be HTML based, with limited use of Flash. Your code should be simple, W3C compliant, and should be kept as light and error free as possible. For instance, I’ve seen a site improve its design and include added functionality, yet cut its actual code length by over 70%. This was accomplished mostly by employing CSS in the design, ridding the site of Viewstate code, and moving all possible elements to external include files.
In addition to having concise HTML, the following should be adhered to:
- Absolutely avoid any type of frame, unless you’re trying to hide its content from the engines
- Your navigation should be text based, with meaningful words that are simple yet targeted to the subject of each page
- Images should be optimized (condensed) for the web and include ALT tags
- URL, Title tags, H1 headers, breadcrumbs, and hyperlinks should all be optimized around the particular subject of each page
- The content of each page should be targeted to the precise topic of that page alone
- Address, phone number, and other contact information should be in text – not image form
- Your SEO Friendly Content Management System should allow full control of all of the above elements
The typical lifespan of a website is 3-5 years before your customers will expect a fresh look and feel, with newly added technology and interactivity. As you’re looking at the investment itself, think about the amortization of a new site. Even a fairly expensive site, amortized over 5 years, is an incredibly inexpensive business tool likely to drive substantial ROI.
Keep in mind, the best design in a search friendly architecture still requires ongoing marketing. Just like your offline business needs branding, marketing, and exposure to gain customers, so does your website. Internet Marketing Services are offered in a myriad of formats, timeframes, and cost structures. Shop carefully to find the right marketing partner for your business.
Brand Trust Advice for Start-up E-Commerce Sites
Brand trust is simply defined by the general opinion that people have of your company and whether or not they believe you will deliver a quality product. Having brand trust is vital to the importance of every business. The task of creating brand trust in an online world can be exceptionally challenging because your customers are buying a product that they can’t hold and touch, from a company they can’t see. For this reason, the importance of brand trust is even more crucial when marketing on the web.
Here are three major aspects to consider when creating your brand trust strategy:
For startup websites, the most important factor in establishing brand trust is quality graphic design. Through graphic design, a one man shop can automatically give the impression of a multi-million dollar operation merely by having a website with a professional look. This is a huge advantage in the online world that every start-up should take full advantage of. Have an experienced proficient graphic designer create a dynamic design for your website. It will be well worth the investment.
Note: It can also help conversion rates to have security logos from the BBB or your SSL provider tactfully placed within your design.
The second important aspect to consider is customer service. It is essential to have contact information that is easily accessible and complete on your website. A 1-800 number is a must, as it allows someone to be contacted immediately if the customer has a question. If you do not plan on having someone answer the phone full time, provide an answering machine. Physical addresses, emails, and even contact forms displayed visibly on your website will increase your level of trust with potential buyers. Also, be sure to fulfill orders quickly and update customers with email notifications when their items have been shipped. Failing to complete orders in a timely fashion and allowing delayed product arrival to the customer will encourage them to look elsewhere next time they shop.
Finally, consider your website information. Customer reviews for your products, blogs, articles, and various other forms of content can help communicate information and knowledge about your industry to its consumers. It can also increase your ranking in the search engines and drive traffic to your site. Organizing all of this information in a user-friendly way is imperative so that customers can find what they are looking for. Clutter is bad, so always make sure that your designer is analyzing each page on your site to ensure that the content stays within design guidelines.
Establishing brand trust is not always easy or intuitive, but if it’s done right it can help set the foundation of future online success.
New Design Trends Lend to Better Success Rates
Too often in a prospective client conversation, at the moment when a redesign is discussed, the client is thinking more about all of the information they would like to present instead of how they want to present it. Giving too much user choice as to ‘where to go next’ is a trend that’s dying. No longer are there new sites with multi-level navigation front and center, with an endless plethora of choice.
Smart designers and smart SEOs know better. It’s up to us to guide the client to best understand who’s coming to the site and what they want. Drop down navigation menus are being replaced with two or three call to action buttons, proactively guiding a user through the site…to the ultimate conversion.
Now, each page has a purpose, a placement in a highly organized or siloed structure, a call to action; information combined with a gentle (or not so subtle) push to the next step toward conversion.
Smart sites are designed with the ultimate purpose in mind – which may vary from purchasing product, filling out a lead generation form, calling direct or visiting a particular page. They work backwards internally and create the site around a specific and direct set of keywords and actions they would like to be found for and what products and services they offer.
Recent home page designs are clean and straight-forward, which guide the user to the next step and meets them at the point of their buying process (whether research or purchase driven). Since you have an average of 15 seconds to get your point across and invite a visit to click deeper into your web site, the need for simplicity is imperative.
Does your home page have a purpose? Does your site have a goal or set of goals?
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