Friendly Website Building Tips

Your site needs to be built for the searchers and users first, but you can’t ignore the search engines. The following are some basic tips on how to meet both goals and help your site succeed.

Analytics is a must for any site you plan to monetize. If you can’t track visitors, mash data and in general collect info, than you are going to fail. Miserably.

A banner or logo that immediately draws attention and reassures visitors that they are in the right place is imperative.

Balancing your page is important, too. Leave some space to keep it easy on the eye. Use an easy to read font, a muted background and a balance between text and graphics. 250-350 words is completely adequate for a home page.

Make sure you can easily revamp any step you take. Redirects should be a snap, and new pages should be added easily. Decide on a format for your urls and stick to it.

Your page titles, header tags and meta descriptions are a chance to optimize and sell your site. Take advantage of this! Write sharp, to the point copy to take advantage of this opportunity.

CCS makes it much easier for the search engines. Try to avoid unnecessary code – the more things you have to go wrong, the more things will go wrong! Likewise, plan on using text navigation instead of depending on Javascript.

Make sure your contact information is easy to find! Your phone number, business hours, etc should be clearly noted, especially if you have a location that might pick up foot traffic from web search!

Make sure you have an action button above the fold for those impulse driven consumers. Always make sure your shopping process is streamlined and easy, and display your security reassurances prominently.

Use bullet points or short paragraphs like this article to make reading easier and finding the relevant information a breeze. This can let you fully describe things without getting cluttered or cramped.

Don’t go crazy with bolding and highlighters. All this does is distract. You don’t want a manic website – leave that to the snake oil salesmen. Use only high quality graphics.

If you have a sign up, subscription or contact form, ask only for what you really need, and make sure your privacy policy is clear.

Sitemap. Sitemap. Sitemap. Sitemap. You need a static HTML one as well as an XML for your webmaster account. Make your sitemap accessible to your visitors as well!

These basic steps will help your website succeed. As you learn more, you can tweak things, but this is a good start!