Every website is different. Thank goodness! Some websites make us laugh, some make us shop, and some make us absolutely sure we’re going to die from rhinorrhea (a runny nose, calm down). Good websites and great websites, however, start with making sure they’ve covered the basics. Here are ten things your website has to get right from the get-go.
1. Let’s just get it out of the way – Your website must be mobile responsive. End of story, no exceptions.
2. Simple and welcoming layout – Easy and obvious navigation, clear separation and organization of elements. People need to know what’s important on the page, not how many cool bells and whistles you can squeeze onto a 13” screen. Make sure the layout points the visitor to what’s important (to them) first. A website is not a bulletin board, don’t treat it like one.
3. Brand continuity – People should immediately know who they’re dealing with when they land on your site. Creativity is great and can certainly make an impact, but avoid the temptation to be so creative that the visitor has to guess what you’re all about.
4. Great content – Create content that keeps the visitor on the site by providing answers to their questions, helpful resources, and clear calls to action. Great content includes images, videos, infographics, polls, gifs, whitepapers, you get the idea. Content does not always mean copy. However, if your website is rich with content, make sure it’s well-structured, helpful content, in short paragraphs of ideally no more than six lines.
5. Descriptive headlines – Forget everything you learned in Journalism 101 about writing headlines. Big splash, two-word headlines like “NO DEAL!” work for Newspapers because readers have context for the headline. Web headlines need to be more descriptive for readers and for search engines. This means they’re typically a bit longer, often contain a keyword, and should tell the visitor what they can expect to find on the page. “WHAT YOUR CREDIT SCORE MEANS TO US.” Not as fun to write, we know, but it’s the price you pay to show up at the top of search results.
6. Calls to Action – Tell the visitor what they should do next and what the payoff is for doing it. Make it clear, easy to find, and, please, please, please make sure the payoff isn’t behind yet another Call to Action. If the visitor does what you asked, you should do what you promised, without delay. When you have provided enough value to ask for some information in return – don’t ask for more than you’re offering. The number of form fields should be equal to the actual value of the download.
7. More great content! Yep – It’s worth mentioning twice. Google has a short memory, and so do people. Don’t rely on old content to attract new audiences. Make a plan for adding fresh content and stick to it. Most organizations do this with regular blog posts, but landing pages, white papers, videos, and images (with alternative text, so the search engine knows what’s in the picture) are also welcome here.
8. XML Sitemap – If you want the search engines to crawl your website (and you do), then you must upload your XML sitemap to the root directory of your site and keep it updated. Many of the most popular CMSs include a plugin that will do this for you, but put your own eyeballs on the finished product to make sure utility pages aren’t included since that could affect how your site is indexed.
What are utility pages? Glad you asked! These pages are often the ones in the footer of your website – they’re important, but no one is coming to your site just to find them. Legal disclaimers and privacy policy pages are great examples. Password recovery pages are also common utility pages.
Think of your XML sitemap as a city guide for search bots that shows them all the city’s hotspots. Your good content pages – the stuff that informs, influences, and entertains, are like five-star restaurants. Your utility pages are one-star bagel shops. Too many bagel shops on the map, and your city gets a three-star review for Best Cities for Foodies.
9. Title Tags and Meta Descriptions – Do a Google search – on any topic – go ahead, we’ll wait. Okay, see the blue “headline”? That’s your title tag. It tells the search engine, and the user, what they can find on the page. And that two or three lines below it? You guessed it, Meta Description.
Well-written, accurate, succinct title tags and meta descriptions are how you throw your hat in the search query ring. If you do it right and the search engine gods vote you on to the results page, that same information (sometimes slightly tweaked by Google) is how most people will decide whether or not to click on your page. There are guidelines and best practices for getting this right. We’ll let Moz be your guide.
10. Permanent 301 redirects – If you move a page, send a forwarding address. Seriously. Otherwise, all that great content is pretty much off the grid. Permanent 301s tell web crawlers where the new page is so visitors can find it and you can keep reaping the benefits of your SEO efforts.
How did you do? Not sure if you can check any of the boxes? Maybe it’s time for a digital audit. Let us know if we can help.
