Are you looking for ways to improve your website? Here are 10 simple ideas you might not have thought about:
- Review your homepage – don’t waste valuable real estate welcoming your visitors, instead tell them what you offer and try and convince them to stay a little longer.
- Make navigation simple and consistent. If you have a lot of links, consider using a drop-down style menu to organize those links, and keep the navigation bar looking the same throughout the whole website.
- Write meaningful titles. Titles are the most important aspect of your page, both from an SEO and a user standpoint – use keywords for the search engines, but make it obvious to the user what the page is about.
- Break up large blocks of text and use bullets where appropriate. Nobody has the time to read. Admit it – you “scan” webpages too! Short paragraphs and bullets make reading much easier on your visitors.
- Add a photo of the business owner or president. People like to know who they are doing business with. Also replace those snapshot photos of your staff with some professional portraits – the difference will amaze you.
- Offer free information to your visitors – they will appreciate it and come back when they need your services.
- Change “click here” or “read more” links to include keywords – much more valuable SEO wise. Example – instead of “For ways to promote your website click here”, say “See our article 10 ways to promote your website”.
- Add Google Maps – you can embed a map of your office right into your webpage, giving users an easy way to see where you are, and obtain driving directions without having to copy/paste or retype your address.
- If you use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc, make sure you link up to your main website.
- Add a call to action on every page. If you don’t give your visitors a clear way to progress from one page to another, they might not know where to go next and leave.