1. Responsive scaling – Your site must be programmed so it scales to be easily viewed on any internet access device – from desktop computers to smartphones.
2. On-Site Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Every page needs to be optimized both on the page and in the source code. Consider the Page Title, Keywords, Description, H1 & H2 Headers, sufficient iterations of Keywords, Links within the site will draw the viewer and search engines in deeper to your content and Keyword Rich Content.
3. A ‘back-end’ user friendly administrative interface for easy text and image revisions in-house.
4. ‘Sticky Features’ (such as newsletter sign-ups and discounts) will encourage visitors to interact with your website, stay on the site longer and view more pages – all increasing the odds of a follow through on your call to action.
5. Designed and developed for a user friendly experience. One example is the choice of text & background colors. As an example: black text on a light background is easier on the eyes than white lettering on a black background. User-friendly websites have easy to find and use navigation and should include a sitemap.
6. Go with professionals, including a custom website design to reinforce your unique services/products; professional photographs – look your best!; a professional marketing copywriter for benefits oriented wording that effectively sells your company; programmers who can execute your site feature requirements.
Follow these guidelines and you will be on your way to a productive website that is easily found on the internet.
Boosting your Page Rank (PR) is an organic way to improve your search engine results. Backlinks are the backbone of building a strong PR but can be challenging to obtain. Posting to directories and submitting articles does help for sure. However, many times the backlinks they give you have a tag called “nofollow” associated with them. This means that the search engines won’t give these links as much weight. Purchasing backlinks from a “backlink farm” does also work but the quality of the links are poor and they quickly fizzle-out. Then you find yourself buying more links to replace them. The PR of the backlinks matters more than the quantity of them. You can have 100,000 PR zero links and your page would still be a PR zero. However, you get one solid PR 7 (very hard to get) and you could very quickly become a PR 4.
Of course you want visitors to come to your website and to then take whatever call to action is appropriate. If you are selling a product, you want them to buy it. If you are offering a service you want visitors to use it. If you have an organization you probably want to increase membership and raise funds.