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The internet can be an extremely unforgiving place and with billions of pages floating around competing for attention it is absolutely vital that your website stands out from the crowd.

If you implement the steps I’ve outlined below you’ll be guaranteed to;

• Build trust and confidence in your company’s products and enhance its reputation.
• Drive more visitors to your website.
• Attract new customers, generate and convert more leads.
• Improve the browsing satisfaction of your visitors/potential customers.
• Help them to find the information they are looking for more quickly.

Ok, let’s get down to it. Your website is very often the most visible marketing face of your company/brand – it has to kick ass. I’m going to take you through seven steps that will help it to do so.

1.    Change content regularly – There is nothing more damaging to a company’s reputation than seeing content that is way out of date. We often get asked to refurbish websites and are constantly amazed at how out of date the content is.

You need to give visitors a reason to come back to your website, if they know that the next time they visit they’ll see something new you can be sure that they’ll be typing in your url into their browser more often than that of your competitors. Think about the websites that you visit everyday, I bet you only go to them because you know that you’re getting some new and valuable information.

Depending on the nature of your website and what you want it to achieve we recommend that you update its content at least every month, preferably every week, ideally everyday.

Idea: One of the easiest ways to keep your content fresh is to post news items on what your company’s up to (successes, new clients etc) or highlights of new products/services/special offers onto your website. You’d be surprised how easy and quick it is to type out a couple of hundred words on a regular basis on something you already know so much about.

2.    Content must visitor focused – It’s a simple rule – put the customer first. You must tell them exactly what they need to know about your company and your products – “they are the best!” and why they should stop their search with you. It’s very tempting to bang on about what your company does, your history, your employees but ask yourself this; “Does your customer really care? Will this help to make that vital sale?”

Idea: Create an “About Us” section on your website and put in it everything to do with your company’s history, staff, philosophy etc. Remember to keep this information to absolute minimum on the home page – it really won’t help your cause.

Idea: Read all of the content on your website as if you were the customer or better still get a friend who doesn’t know much about what you do to do it. Ask them if the content on the website is clear and if they now feel encouraged to buy your products/services.

3.    Optimise your homepage – The home page is the first point of call for the vast majority of your visitors, it has to;

• Be visually engaging – make sure that your visitor’s attention is grabbed straight away, use subtle animation to draw their eye.
• Offer a platform to showcase your very latest products – choose a spot on your homepage to promote the products/services that you are most excited about and the visitor will most want/need.
• Offer easy access to all and any information that the visitor needs - any important page, be it a product/service or vital information must be just one click away from the home page. Make sure that you’ve got all the appropriate links.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now – in order to encourage visitors to come back regularly your homepage must change regularly, it must be FRESH.

Idea: Get that trusted friend to help you out again (you can do it yourself but it won’t be as effective). Ask them to look at your homepage for just 30 seconds and get them to write down/tell you anything they can remember about it. If they just say things like it was pink and there was lots of text to read then you’ve got a problem. They should be saying things like – you’ve got 3 different products and they are x,y and z, if you’re lucky they may even be able to tell why they need it.

4.    Visually appealing – How many websites have you visited that have made you cringe and lunge for the ‘close window’ button. Yep, it’s shocking how many sites ignore simple rules of design and also use pictures of poor quality, considering how readily available design tips are these days (visit www.websitedesigntips.co.uk for some ideas) there really is no excuse for it.

Here’s a few things to consider to help make your site more visually appealing;

• Use stock photography – using professional images on your website is a sure way to make it look professional and they are far cheaper to buy than you’d imagine. Check out websites like www.istockphoto.com which sells images from $1 each and www.shutterstock.com which has great deals on bulk purchases.
• Be consistent with your layout – make sure that the layout of your website’s pages are consistent. Visitors need to become familiar with the structure and layout of the site.
• Choose an appealing and complimentary palette of colours - be careful of choosing your favourite colours, often they won’t translate well onto the web and they don’t always work well together. Check out www.website-colors.com for some suitable palette choices.

Idea: Go to www.istockphoto.com and type in a few words that you’d use to describe your company and its products/services, you’ll be amazed at how many extremely good images you’ll find and how effective it’ll be at enhancing your website’s look and feel.

5.    Make it professional - This is probably one of the easiest things to do but again is often neglected and seen as one of the least important aspects of building and maintaining a website. You’ve got to give your visitors confidence in your company/brand and your products/services.

Making sure your website is professionally presented is vital to achieving this.

• Be consistent with style and font – avoid the temptation to use lots of different fonts, choose just one or two and stick with them for the whole site. Also decide what size font you’re going to use for the main content, headings etc, and stick to them.
• Check spelling and grammar – always check and recheck all your content no matter how small (you’d be amazed how many mistakes you’ll find in menus and footers).
• Fix broken links – As your website grows you’ll have more and more links and so the easier it’ll be for a typo to creep into one of your links. Search through your site on a regular basis and check every single link.

Idea: Find a regular day and time to dedicate 15 minutes a week to checking for spelling and grammar mistakes and hunting down broken links – and then of course when you find them get them fixed! Probably not a good idea to get your trusted friend to do this, they might be getting a bit tired of it all by now.

6.    Search box – It’s amazing how many websites don’t have a search function in their website. Including one your site is one of the best ways to ensure that your visitors find the information that they wanted from your website. If they find what they’re looking for they’ll be happy with their visit, if they’re happy you can be sure they’ll come back and they’ll also be more likely to tell their friends.

Tracking your visitors searching habits is also a great way to up-date your content for their needs. For example – If you’ve got a website that sells books on gardening and you notice that visitors keep searching on “Pruning Rose” bushes, you’ll know where you need to improve your stock.


7.    Footer menu – This may seem like a small and insignificant menu but it’s one that you shouldn’t overlook – it’s something that visitors look for more and more on a website. In no particular order you should include at least the following;

• Contact Us - you’ve got to give your potential and existing customers as many opportunities to find out how to contact you as possible. If they contact you’re far more likely make that sale and it’s easier to keep them happy.
• Privacy Policy – with spam becoming an ever increasing problem it is vital that you reassure your visitors that you value their privacy – put together a short document to this effect stating that you won’t share their details with anyone (etc.) and put a link to it in the sitemap