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Before instructing any web development or website design professional or perhaps trying to build one yourself, Rob has put together these top tips to make sure you get the most out of your website.
domain name choice
When choosing your domain name make sure it is short and easy to type to minimise the risk of searchers misspelling words. Avoid numbers as people wont know whether to type the number as a word or a numeral.
make sure it’s responsive
With the majority of web traffic coming from smart phones and tablets these days it is important to have a responsive website that adapts the content to fit all devices and screen sizes. Google also lists responsive sites as Mobile-Friendly, letting smart-phone or tablet users know beforehand if your site is optimised or not.
bite size content
Viewers will skim through text on websites rather than read properly to find the information they want. Keep text short and concise and as relevant as possible to the page title. Add more pages with less content, i.e. if you have 5 or 6 different services, create specific pages for each one rather than detailing all your different services on one page.
make it personal
People buy from people so by adding photos or videos of yourself and staff and adding testimonials from satisfied customers helps to build trust and make them more likely to choose you.
keywords
Keywords are words that people will use to search for your services or product. Research what popular words or phrases people use to find your products or services. Make your web designer or web developer aware of these but also try and include these words within your page content especially in headings and sub headings.
fast loading pages
If your site is slow to load you are greatly reducing the time before someone will click away. Large images can be a key factor to slow loading pages. Make sure you optimise and resize images before uploading to blogs etc
get social
Social media can be of great benefit to your site by adding links or post feeds to your site. Adding interesting posts like latest news, successes or promotions on social media can be a great way of getting users to interact with your company more and gain trust. If new to social media it is better to learn to use 1 well rather than use 2 or 3 badly.
contact details
Make sure your reader can access your contact information easily wherever they are on the site. If they have found the information they are after they will most likely want to contact you. Make it easy for them by adding your phone number and email to the header and footer of each page and where relevant add links to your contact page within your content.
look after your website
Just like a car or anything else, if you keep your site regularly serviced and updated it will work better for longer. Google constantly looks for updates to websites so by updating information or writing blog posts regularly will aid your page ranking. Also check for links to pages or resources that may not exist any more. These are known as broken links and are not only annoying for a user but also another thing that Google checks for.
