Posts Tagged ‘prospective clients’

Five Simple Tricks to Making Your Website More Successful

Building a successful website is tough, sometimes we get caught up in technical issues and forget that a website is meant to be for people so let’s take a few seconds and look at five simple tips which will make your website more successful.

Super Simple Navigation

The old KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) works perfectly for navigation.  For a website to work, it has to be intuitive and easy to understand by all levels of computer users. Take a moment and think about your page structure and why people come to your website.

For example, if your website offers software downloads ask yourself why people come to your site. If the answer is to download your software, get support about your software and buy your software … those three items should be key links on all pages of your site.

Make it Easy for People to Contact You

Above all else, the purpose of your website should be for prospective clients to reach you and existing business to connect with you. Ensuring your primary contact details are on each page is an easy way to help your business grow.

Think of Your Website as a Book

Every book has a title, which helps you find it. Books also have cheesy “marketing type” on the cover or back to summarize and entice the prospective buyer. Finally, the book has chapters, indexes and a logical flow that people understand.

Your website should have the same, an opening page with effective marketing type followed by a progressive series of pages designed to funnel readers towards your desired goal as well as an effective site map for easy navigation.

Focus Your Goal

I’m reminded of a scene from The Cider House Rules, ask yourself what your business is because (as the lead character soon discovers) a man needs to know his business. What is the business of your website? Why did you spend money and time having it built?  Now that you know what the purpose of your website is, focus your energy on creating content which will motivate your audience towards your goal.

Speak to Your Market

Websites are about your market, not you. Colors, text, language, graphics and content must be selected to promote your product or service to your audience in the most effective manner possible.

Dallas Curow

dallas Dallas Curow image

When Montreal design studio house9 design needed to have a website built for a great photopher, Dallas Curow (also of Montreal) they asked me to put together an easy to manage tool using WordPress which would allow Dallas to easy add new photos, update her text and ensure prospective clients can easily contact her.

portfolio Dallas Curow imageWordPress allowed me to use a super easy content management tool without needed to program a complex tool from scratch, it allow allows this talented young artist to focus on what she knows best, photography. To make the most of the site, it’s also integrated into Google applications for Analytics and Webmaster Tools.

Thanks to house9 design for the awesome design but do you know what really makes this website great? Amazing content in the form of brilliant photographs from Dallas Curow.

Five More Things to Write if you Want More Traffic

Following up on last weeks post, here are five more things to write about in your blog to increase traffic:

Write something your believe in

Take a stand on a subject, don’t be afraid to let people know what you really believe and follow it up with solid facts. Your readers might not agree with you but honestly, who cares?

Write something emotional

People love puppies and kittens more than they move pointy sticks so write something to connect with them on an emotional level, let them know that you’re not just a robot tossing out recycled content.

Write something to calm their fears

When I talk to prospective clients, you know why their current websites usually suck? They’re afraid of technology, the Internet and the web. My entire blog is about helping to take away that fear.

Write something to motivate users

Help your users be better at what they need to achieve through quality writing and articles designed to stimulate their goals.

Write something that gets a response

I get emails from users all the time commenting on articles here and not always in a good way. Honestly, I love when people call me out on stupid things I’ve posted here … it helps me write better content.

What Makes a Successful Web Site?

It Should Be Fast Loading 

The biggest single reason visitors do not stay at a Web site is because it takes too long to load; that is, the time it takes for a page to appear on the user’s computer. The site needs to be designed around the premise of “loading” as quickly as possible. To achieve this, I suggest a strong text base for pages where appropriate. Text loads very quickly, which is particularly important, as one of the characteristics of the primary audience is that it is “time-poor”. Although high-speed broadband Internet access is on the increase, a significant number of people still use slower dial-up connections. 

Rich Photography

what makes successful website 300x300 What Makes a Successful Web Site? imageThe inclusion of visual images is one of the most overlooked aspects of the web but without the cost of traditional media printing, the Internet is the perfect place for business owners to feature rich, colorful images capable of effectively communicating the businesses’ key benefits.

Look and Feel 

A Web site today represents the first contact point for many prospective clients. It shows how professional a company is and what kind of attitude they have in selling themselves. I will discuss the interface and layout of the site with you, to ensure that it is attractive, appealing and reflects the appropriate image. The site will be simple to navigate, thereby encouraging users to explore it. 

Information Structure 

A clear, crisp view of the information on the site is paramount in relation to finding specific information. To provide major benefit to the client, the site should have significant amounts of information available to the user. This information must be easily found and presented in such a way as to encourage use. Information on the site must be able to be quickly and easily updated by the client. 

Optimized Content

How you organize your website and the order you present content to the public has a significant impact not only on how users navigate your website but also how other websites interact with your business. It’s important that your website meet international coding standards, be well organized and built to be read properly by companies such as Google and Yahoo.

Fresh Content

Content updates are one of the most frequently ignored aspects of a great website but just like a restaurant, keeping the content fresh and updated will help to increase traffic to an average website but up to 300% instantly.

Interact with Users

Web site owners often treat a website as a unidirectional marketing channel, static and forgettable but today a website is a portal to your customers and one of the easiest ways for you to reach them. Successful websites have forums, blogs, contests and free gifts for users to take advantage of.