Yesterday I told you all about a badly put together, unutilized site. Today, lets see how we can avoid such problems!
Your home page needs to be uncluttered! White space goes over well, it really does. A crowded block of too small text smack in the middle of your home page is just sloppy and unattractive.
Your header should be wide and clean, with your name and slogan well displayed. Try not to clutter your header with unnecessary info that is only going to be repeated elsewhere on the page.
The right and left sides of your home page are a great place for info. A search box, a category box and your guarantee of secure purchasing are good to have above the fold, as well as a register now spot. Save your privacy notice, contact info and other such links for the footer.
Utilize the center section of your home page to tell just a little about what you offer, and why your visitor should take a moment to explore. If you have a special, here is a good place to plug it. Don’t make your home page too big! It will load slowly, and having to scroll down is boring.
Your site should be easily navigable without all visitors having to resort to a sitemap, but your map should none the less be very clear. Use words that will tell exactly what the consumer can expect on the page linked to.
If you have articles, link them naturally rather than with a link that simply says ‘articles’, and make sure they are on well formatted pages that are easy to read. Use a picture to break up the text, and always double space your paragraphs for ease of reading. Avoid hard returns!
Your other pages on the site should always contain a link back to the home page, and (if appropriate) a call to action such as register now, add to cart, or buy now! Keyword optimize your pages, but not to the extent that you lose your user friendly aspect, and don’t make every third word a link, please! This is so distracting.
If you have advertising on your site, or affiliates, be careful that you do not detract from your site’s effectiveness and visibility. Unless you are running a site solely for AdSense income, you need to be promoting your own products!
Remember the site from yesterday? With a little TLC it should now have a balanced look. The cool monthly specials and sales item should be front and center, with a brief welcome and overview of the site’s mission.
On the left should be the improved category box, followed by a special promo for gift certificates and shipping options. Below that is plenty of room for a link or two to the articles on the origin of the company, and maybe a customer review.
On the right, the secure payment advisory can be displayed, with the search box under that, then the sign up box for the e-mail, newsletter, etc. The whole page is a single screen now, with the former tiny text about all the sites products relegated to individual inner pages to break up the graphics and add interest.
The site map has been revised and cleaned up to reflect a balanced site, and the two articles have their own nice neat pages with accompanying graphics! This is so important – no-one would have wanted to read them before, hidden away and unformatted as they were, but now they add a personable touch to the site!
The entire website should do a lot better now. The traffic will be better due to a little SEO, and the traffic will stay once they arrive since the site is actually appealing and navigable now!
Tags: optimization, sitemap, Traffic