Many small business owners struggle with the
seemingly overwhelming task of managing their web site. There always seems to
be so much to do, yet no time to do it all (something we know all too well).
This brief primer should help to highlight the key aspects of web site
management that will help them gain the most from their web site with the time
that they have available.
The following ten tips are key to maintaining a successful web site.
Follow these and your site will do better. Nothing will guarantee that a web
site will be successful as there are simple too many different factors that
impact web success - but as a general rule these ten tips will always lead to
better performance.
1. Content
2. Freshness
3. No Tricks
4. Links
5. Structure
6. Accessibility
7. Quality Code
8. URLs
9. Style
10. Images
For more detail consult Building Web Site Success a detailed primer about these
and other aspects of Internet marketing.
#1 Content
Content is key: Almost all the search engines scan a sites content now - almost ignoring things
like meta tags. The more content you have on your site the more the search
engines can scan - but there is more to it then that: people like content too.
Many people measure a web site's success by the number of visitors it gets - so
ask yourself - why would people come to your web site? do you offer them
interesting and informative information that relates to your product or
service? if not, why would they come?
Relevant content and lots of it is a key for a successful web site. There is
always room for more content on a web site, and you can never have too much.
Take this article for example, while it's fairly useful information for many of
our visitors, it's also additional content for our web site - and will serve to
help our site do better. Writing articles about aspects of your industry is a
great way to generate content.
Set asside an hour a day (or at least an hour a week) to devote to adding new
content to your web site.
#2 Freshness
Keep it current: Having lots of content is great - but if it is all three years old it's not
going to look like your site is much of a priority. The search engines actually
track this. They monitor how frequently your site changes as they visit it for
indexing. The more often it changes the better your rank in the freshness
category.
What constitutes change? pretty much anything - which is why keeping a BLOG or
adding frequent news articles to your web site usually produces such good
results. It is also the reason why having something as simple as rotating
content and the current date on every page has been shown to make a difference
(although the search engines have been getting wise to this kind of tactic)
#3 No Tricks
Don't try to outsmart the Search Engines -
Eventually you'll loose: Many design firms promise success through the use of tricks, backdoors, and
special tactics designed to sneak a web site into a top position rapidly.
Something, of course, that the search engines are constantly battling to
defeat. Why play the game? as the search engines find the cheaters they will
plug the holes and a rank (that usually costs a pretty penny to achieve) will
immediately be lost.
Rather, follow the recommendations of the search engines - most set out rules
for web masters that outline what they would like to see in a web site
(incidentally these rules are the main source of research for this document) By
following the rules the engines are actually battling all the cheating web
sites and working to promote the sites that follow the rules - they are fighting
FOR you!
#4 Links
Links both in and out must be relevant: There has been a lot of talk about link exchanges - people linking to others
merely to gain a higher rank (hmmm this smacks of breaking tip #3) if you are
going to link to someone and/or ask them to link to you - ask yourself: is it
relevant?
Any old link is not going to help you much - search engines will look at who is
linking to you - they are also starting to pay very close attention to how many
links you have off your web site on a page. This is being done to try and drop
sites with pages of links (do you have a links page on your web site?)
It is far better to have relevant links places throughout your web site - on
only those pages that specifically the topic that relates to the page being linked
to.
Unfortunately you can't exert too much control over the way that other sites
link to yours but it is worth looking at how a site usually links to others
before to specifically go requesting a link from them.
#5 Structure
Organize your web site and everyone will thank
you: Both the search engines and your web visitors prefer a web site that is well
structured. The search engines due to their very nature (being computer
programs) must break down all web sites into elements based on the structure of
the pages. People, so frequently rushing to find the specific information they
are looking for, rarely read through web pages but rather scan headings and
bullied lists to find the detailed sections of interest. In both cases a well
structured site will be far better received then one that is a mish-mosh of
information haphazardly thrown together.
This is simple to do - but all too often missed. Make headings, use the correct
coding tags for them, organize sections of content into groups, and use bold
and bullied lists to present key points.
Keep in mind when writing paragraphs of text that most humans will not read
them unless they are specifically titled with a headline that matches what they
are looking for.
#6 Accessibility
A web site that speaks to all is better then a
site that only speaks to some: Tips #6 and #7 are closely related: The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
provides a list of guidelines for how to create web sites that are accessible
to as many people (and systems) as possible. Think about your web site - can
someone with a visual disability (perhaps even something as simple as
colour-blindness) still get information about your product or service? If not,
how do you feel knowing that you have just excluded a vast segment of the
population from accessing your web site?
There are many simple ways that you can ensure your web site is accessible to
people with special needs. A group of simple tests for the sites content and
design that ensure your product or service is presented to the widest possible
audience. The specifics are beyond the scope of this document - but be sure
that you check with your designer to ensure that your site design and code is
following accessibility guidelines.
#7 Quality CodeWell coded web sites perform better: Many small business owners don't have too much control over the code used to
create their web site - but it is still important to know how important it may
be. Standard compliant code that has been checked for errors is easier for the
search engines to assimilate. It is more widely visible across varied platforms
(computer types) and in different browsers.
Ensure your web designer is writing standard compliant code that is validated
for errors. You can also check your own web site using free on-line tools from the W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium - the standards body
that administers Internet technologies)
#8 URLs
Prudent choice of URLs will impact your web
site's performance: Professional web designers should already know this - but if you are using a
content management system to build your web site, or portions of it, it is
important to understand the significance of the URL used to access pages on
your web site.
Search engines look at the address of every page on your web site and try to
extract key-words from the content of the url. For example, you may have a page
about "Widgets" on your web site called "somewhere.com"
creating the page with a filename of wigits.html will give a better keyword rank then page6.html this is also true of sub-directories on the site somewhere.com/widgets/... being better then somewhere.com/files/...
This is a fairly subtle point but makes a significant difference for most
search engines. It can also make it much easier for people that are typing in a
URL to access a specific page of your web site. Notice the URL for this web
page - it's called http://www.pawprint.net/internet-marketing/small-business-web-site.php for a reason!
#9 Style
Looks do matter - but perhaps not the way you
think...: In the grand scheme of things the "looks" of a web site in the
classic sense are not really that important - honestly! once people have looked
at a web site for a few minutes they will quickly discard their first
impression (based on looks) and move immediately to asking - is this site
giving me the information I need - and can I find it quickly (going back to
tips #1 - content and #5 - structure)
So what are we on about with style? simple - ensure the style of your site
makes it easy to read. Avoid things like black backgrounds with white text (inverse
text is harder to read) ALL CAPS (humans read by identifying word shapes -
writing in all caps forces people to read every letter and quickly becomes
annoying - plus on the net it is used as an typographic method of indicating
you are screaming) You should also check your web site using a colour blind test to ensure that visitors with the various types of
colour-blindness can still actually read your navigation.
#10 Images
Selling a product - better make sure it looks good: If you are selling something that has a visual representation - then
professional looking photography is key. Even a multi-million dollar resort
will not look good if the photographs are amateurish. If you care about what
you have to sell, then it's worth investing in some professional photographs to
show people what you have. Remember, on-line people can't get a hold of your
product - so you need to give them some really good photographs so that they can
feel confident that it meets their needs.
Thanks for visiting; don't forget to comment!
