Building a
website can sometimes be a daunting task, especially for a business owner who
doesn’t know what critical elements are required. Many times, all the attention is spent on the
aesthetics of the site and not enough attention is paid to some of the most
important elements that are going to ensure the site maximizes its visibility
on the Internet. Below is a brief list
of some of those strategically important elements:
1. Keyword-Rich
Copy: Make sure that the most commonly
searched keywords for your business are built into the framework of the
site. This should include having a
dedicated page (i.e. Profit Center Page) for each of these major keywords as
well as ensuring the body-copy language used through each profit center page is
written richly with those keywords and correlating keyword in mind.
2.
Responsive
Design: Make sure that the site is built with
Responsive Design technology. This is
the most current technology that facilitates making sure your website
functions, loads and looks proper on all hardware devices (Desktops, Laptops,
Tablets AND Smartphones). Over 50% of
searches originate from a mobile device these days and this technology makes
sure that the user has a positive experience and doesn’t “bounce” off the
site. Additionally, this is the
preferred technology and configuration to Google, so it is your best option for
delivering a great search and browsing experience to your prospective and
current customers.
3.
Proper
Admin Architecture:
Make sure to have
4 necessary ingredients embedded into the architecture of your site:
a. XML Sitemap
b. Diclaimer Page
c. Privacy Policy Page
d.
Robots.txt
file (and make sure once the site is launched that this file is updated so that
Search Engines are unblocked so they can crawl and index the new site)
4.
Analytics: Add
Google Analytics to your site so you can track any and all behaviors on the
site and use the information to make decisions.
This is the only scientific way you will be able to properly track the
performance of the new site.
5.
User
Experience: Look at the site wearing the hat of a
prospective client and see what their experience is like. You want their experience to be intuitive and
you want to make it VERY easy to become a “lead” for one of your sales
people. Therefore, having lead-gen
forms, call to action and phone numbers in lots of strategic places is
important.
6.
Marketing:
Make sure you site is properly positioning your brand, your products and
your services in a compelling and persuasive fashion. You have to look at the site as a marketer
and make sure that you are sufficiently highlighting the features and benefits
of your products as well as why someone should choose you rather than your
competition. This needs to be done in a
very creative way because users will not typically read lengthy copy to garner
this information. One of the most
effective ways to do this is to embed video into your site that tells the story
you want customers and prospective customers to have about you.
7.
SEO
Compliance: Make sure the site is fully Search
Engine Optimization (SEO) compliant. All
Meta data should be written within the constraints of Search Engines and should
be very keyword-rich. Each page, should have unique Title Metatags that
delineate the contents of just that page (similar to a chapter title within a
book). All images should be ALT tagged
properly with a keyword-rich description of the image. There are many third-party tools that will
grade the SEO Compliance of your site.
One such tool from a recognized third party can be found at
https://marketing.grader.com/
While there are many more
considerations that go into the construction of a site, this list encapsulates
some of the most commonly neglected items and can be used as a reference for
making sure your new site it a step ahead of the norm.
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