So, you are embarking on a new website redesign or perhaps a new webiste atogether. You want the website to look great and to be capable of generating a profit. There are lots of factors that determine (or not) the success of a website. Not least of which is how difficult a market you are in and how much notice you have taken of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from the outset. Regardless of the above, here are four important ideas to take into consideration to make sure your website performs well. 1) Do not use splash pages A splash page is the first page you see when you arrive at a website. It normally has a attractive image with words like ?welcome? or ?enter here?. In reality they serve absolutely no purpose and give your visitors a reason to click on the "back" button! Do yourself a big favor and give them the value of your site without the splash page. 2) Do not use too many banner advertisements Even the least sophisticated internet users have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements and so you will be wasting valuable web-site real estate. Instead, provide more content and incorporate relevant affiliate links into your content, to let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy. The exception to the rule is that if you have a very busy page, you can sell the real estate for good money. Don't go over the top though. 3) Have simple and clear navigation If you provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu, you minimise the chance of a visitor becoming frustrated and leaving your site. Stay away from Flash based menus and multi tiered dropdown menus wherever possible. 4) Give the visitor a clear idea of where they are on your site When visitors are browsing your website, ensure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site quickly. One way of doing this is by offering ?Breadcrumbs?. Breadcrumbs often appear horizontally across the top of a webpage and usually below any title bars or headers. They provide links back to each previous page that the visitor navigated through in order to get to the current page. eBay is an excellant of ?breadcrumb? use. For more articles about , please visit my SEO Services website.
Search engines think the same.
As you start to build out the content on your site, space it out and try to upload a new 200-500 word page every week.
Each one of these pages should go after a different keyword or keyword phrase. Use the top keywords from your PPC campaign.
We'll repeat this point since it is so important: a website that is stagnant and has not changed content over the last year will never lead the pack in search engines.
What are the easiest ways to add fresh content to your page?
A) Build a site that is easy to update and change.
We recommend that you build your site in a modular way. Just think of a site built out of Lego blocks. Every page on your site will consist of a lot of Lego blocks and you can use the same Lego blocks on each of your pages.
Let's say for example you want to change your top header. Most websites navigation bar at the top. If you are using a modular site that uses Lego blocks, then one Lego block would be for your top header. Now you can just update this one Lego block and the header on all of your 68 pages is automatically updated.
This will save you hours of work and make it far easier to update your pages and keep them fresh. Fortunately, you don't have to be a programmer to use this. Building a modular site with Lego blocks is very easy. We cover this in detail in the module on Site Design.
B) Add dynamic content into your site.
Dynamic content is content that automatically keeps changing. In the past, adding dynamic content used to be very hard but with new advancements it has become super easy to do.
Here's an easy way to get updated content into your website effortlessly. Let's say that you are trying to build an expert site on "web design."
In this case, you could go to a site such as BlinkList and automatically add the latest "web design tutorials" that people are finding online to your site. To do this, all you would have to do is:
1) Go to BlinkList
2) Look for the instructions on the sidebar to BROADCAST the content.
3) Copy and paste the javascript code that is provided by BlinkList into your site If you did the above, you would have a section on your site that would constantly show the latest web design tutorials that people are discovering online.
This is not only great content for site visitors but would also keep your site fresh and help significantly with SEO.
C) Attach a blog to your site.
Blogs are very easy to update and should be a key part of every search engine optimization. Search engines like Google love regularly updated, content-rich sites ' which is exactly what blogs are!
Most blogs are updated with new articles and information on a daily basis; over time the search engines recognize them for their wealth of information and boost their ranking.
Blogs also contain a rich supply of links. Since bloggers are always looking for ways to keep their blogs fresh, they are likely to use links rather than create all the content themselves.
Links to quality sites, including blog search engines and directories, can lead to high search engine rankings.
If you have a great site with excellent content that visitors love, this will start to work in your favor. If you are just spamming search engines and not providing value for the visitors, then Google will eventually catch up with you.
Both Lyndon_seo & Bjorn Brands are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bjorn Brands has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing. Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Check out his site and see for yourself how his FREE course can help you do the same at. Bjorn Brands's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.