While almost anyone can have a web site these days it’s much harder to
have a good website. From design aspects to readable content many sites fall
flat. Below I’ve arranged a Top 10 list, because everyone loves a Top 10!
Include a detailed About Us page
The About Us page is a good place
for new visitors and target traffic to find out who you are, why they should
read your content or buy your products, how valuable your site can be, and also
general information about your company, web site, or you.
It’s a good idea to include contact information or at least a clear link to
your Contact Us page. Keep concise and accurate. People want to read about you
but they don’t want a novel. Add important information on this page and point
them to other pages for more in depth coverage.

Include a Contact Us page
Visitors (shoppers, target traffic) need
an easy way to get in touch. Have a clearly marked link for contact information
and include every avenue you receive communication through. Telephone and fax
numbers (both local and 800), e-mail addresses, physical addresses, etc. all
should appear on this page.
To help navigate further, clearly indicate which contacts go where (i.e.
Admin, Tech, Sales, etc.) This will decrease frustration on both ends and allow
better communication to flow. You want to show your visitors that you are
competent and friendly, being easy to contact is one of the best ways to
accomplish this goal.
Add a News, Press Release, Blog, and/or Articles Page
These pages
inform customers of current events, products, endorsements, and other company
happenings all in one place. Make sure to maintain these pages with fresh
content that is reader friendly so your target traffic is more likely to come
back, bookmark your page, and they may even provide word-of-mouth advertising.
Free advertising!
As a bonus, search engines love these types of pages. New, fresh, relevant
content is the stuff of search engines (well, there’s obviously more to it than
just content). Each time a search engine spider crawls your site and find new
content it ups your chances of ranking higher in the organic search listings.
More free advertising!
A Relevant Page Title
As uninteresting as this may sound your page
title holds a lot of weight. If you’re unfamiliar with a page title it is the
name appearing in the blue bar across the top of the page. If your says
something like "Untitled Document" I’m talking to you.
Page titles should be different for every page in your site. They should
clearly and accurately describe your page, and you should try to use keywords in
the page title.
Search engines display the title of your page on SERPs. The catchier and more
accurate your title the better the chance you’ll hit target traffic.
A Relevant Page Name
Again, not so interesting as flashy designs or
up-to-the-minute content, but it’s a necessity to get your target traffic to
your page to see or read the goods.
It’s better to have straightforward page name showing in the URL than names
with ? or other symbols and numbers. For example, a search engine will go to
www.yourdomain.com/about us.htm it will only go to the ? in
www.yourdomain.com/aboutus?094837 . You want search engines to find your pages.
You also want humans to be able to read your names. Keep it simple and
clean.
Good Grammar, Correct Spelling, Complete Thoughts, Sentence
Structure
Everything you were supposed to learn in grade school, use it
now. Not only should your site have relevant content – the more the better -
people should be able to read your content. Choppy or runon sentences that seem
to go nowhere cannot provide the type of readership concise, correct sentences
can.
Misspellings, wrong word usage, bad grammar are all distractions. You do not
want to distract your readers, you want to captivate them. Slang and derogatory
language also distracts. If your site is a business site avoid slang and
offensive language all together – unless that’s your selling point. Jargon is
different, just don’t confuse readers more than necessary.
If you aren’t in command of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. or
if you’d rather focus your efforts elsewhere, that’s fine. It’s a good idea to
beg, plead, hire, or force someone else to take care of this part then as
ignoring the problem won’t make it go away though it may have that effect on
site traffic.
Professional Design, Colors, and Images
Design should be
implemented with usability in mind. Not all visitors will be as web savvy as
you’d like, create easy navigation and links to all your pages. A search bar for
your site is also a good idea.
Colors should be inviting, not blinding. Use colors to emphasize your brand,
product or content. Don’t overpower the visitor with colors. Use colors to make
text pop without being distracting or hard to read.
Images should be friendly and relevant to your site. Images of people work
better than objects and clip art rarely has a positive effect. Make sure your
images can load within a reasonable amount of time, you don’t want to lose
visitors because a single image caused an incredible amount of load time, or
worse froze the visitors browser.
Make Sure ALL Links Are Working Links
This should be a no-brainer,
however it is always a good idea to check and double check your links. Fix any
broken links A.S.A.P. Your reputation counts on it.
Think of any site you’ve been to with a broken link. Disappointing isn’t it?
You probably left or at least had a negative image about the company. Avoid this
mistake and check, recheck, and check your links again.


Use Your Log Files
Log files offer a plethora of information on
your web site, your visitors, what works and what doesn’t. You can’t afford to
miss out on this information – if you can afford it you shouldn’t anyway.
Best idea: Get a program that converts the lengthy text into readable
documentation. It’ll save you time and energy while getting you the information
you desire. Log files will describe customer behavior, they will show you broken
links, and you’ll see where customers flow freely and where they abandon the
site. The invaluable information is at your finger tips. Use it!
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates
These can be used on any
site asking for sensitive information. Not every web site needs this, however if
you plan to collect any visitor information it is a good idea to have some SSL
pages. Though not every page need be SSL.
Pages requiring e-mail, names, telephone numbers, addresses, credit card
information, social security information or any other information visitors may
not readily be giving up online should be securely collected via SSL.

   

About the Author: Kristen Owen, CEO of ContentWorthhttp://www.contentworth.com/”>ContentWorth> .
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