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5. Create site interactivity – a static web site won’t allow
visitors to interact with your web site. Because the Web, is an
interactive medium, create ways in which your visitors will
either want to return or be invited to return. Here are a few
ideas to get you started:
Write an informative newsletter – create a subscription box on
your web site with a link to a sample of your newsletter. In
your newsletter you can invite them to new products and services
on your site.
Run a contest – include a contest form on your web page and
invite them to return to see if they are the winner.
Create a poll or survey – you could have a weekly or monthly
poll or survey, then publish the results at the end of period.
Create a chat room – invite people for one hour a week to chat
with you about your area of expertise. This may become something
they look forward to.
Give something away – people love freebies. If you do a search
for “freebies” on google you will get 1,400,000 sites that offer
free products or services. Make sure the product fits with your
target audience.
6. Simple navigation – sites that make it difficult to find the
information you need, or make it hard to get back to the
homepage, lose visitors very quickly. Other sites have multiple
navigation systems that only create confusion.
Create a navigation system that is simple, quick and makes it
easy to guide the visitor through the site. This can be in the
form of text links or graphical links that are consistent on
every page.
7. Build trust and credibility – if your web site doesn’t give
the impression that you can be trusted because you make
unbelievable claims, you will lose visitors fast. Here are some
ideas:
Ask for testimonies from satisfied customers Give a guarantee
with your service or product. Provide well-written content
Create an “about us” page to give folks a little background of
whom they are doing business with. List any professional
associations you are associated with.
8. Web page popularity – examine your site statistics and see
which pages most of your visitors are landing on. If most of
your visitors are entering the less significant pages of your
web site, you may want to change the keywords of your best pages
to drive web traffic to them instead.
9. Site loading speed – this is the most important factor in
having folks visit your web site. If it is slow loading (more
than 10 seconds with a 56K modem), your visitors will click away
to your competition. Here are some ideas to speed up and cut
down on loading times:
Optimize your graphics so they are small in size. Don’t use too
many graphics on one page. Clean up any bloated or unnecessary
html. Don’t overdo your site with flash, java applets, java
script, and dynamic html
10. Research your competition – constantly keep an eye on your
competition for new technologies and new ways to communicate
with your audience. Take a look at the design and keywords they
are using. If they rank high in the search engines, this will
give you some ideas of how you can improve your own site.
11. Keyword density – analyze the amount of keywords you are
using in each of your web pages. Try to aim for a keyword
density on your site from 3-20%. This will give you a good
range. You can analyze your keyword density by using these
online tools:
http://www.keyworddensity.com
http://www.keywordcount.com
Don’t repeat your keywords more than 3 times. Use different
keywords for each web page.
12. Find a good web designer to redesign your site – look for a
design company that knows all the facets of the web site design
and marketing phases. This ensures you will have a web site that
sells (not just a nice design).
Read
“How to choose a web
designer”
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Herman Drost is a Certified Web Site Designer (CIW), owner
and author of iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web Site Design, Hosting,
and Promotion Packages.
Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original
articles at: subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: www.isitebuild.com/articles |
