5 easy tips for a successful website
What are the main factors behind a successful website?
Creative Director, Shaun Uthup gives his top 5 tips…
1. Get the home page right.
This is the most important page. People generally decide within 5 seconds if they want to stay on your site, based purely on the home page design.
DON’T try and say everything on the home page. This is the most common mistake I see.
You have plenty of opportunity throughout the rest of the site to explain what you do, so don’t feel you have to say it all on the front cover.
2. Keep the navigation simple.
Try and rationalise all of your products or services into a few broad simple choices. Your user needs to be able to navigate easily through the site without getting lost or overwhelmed with buttons.
3. Search engine optimisation.
It is vital that your site is on page 1 of Google BUT it must be for the right list of keywords. Make sure you spend time researching the right keywords for you.
You need to think about the best ways to convert Google positioning into sales. An intelligent SEO strategy can transform the conversion rate of a website.
Your website and especially your home page, must relate strongly and immediately with your targeted list of keywords. Landing pages must be clearly thought out to promote your USPs and explain what you do in relation to your targeted keywords.
4. Web Design, Images, Video and Copy.
Don’t use pre-designed templates and don’t use a web programmer to design your website. Good web design requires an experienced graphic designer. A graphic designer will know how to brand your website correctly and ensure your key messages are intelligently communicated.
Quality images and intelligent copy are paramount. Make the copy as concise as possible and try to engage your audience rather than just talk about yourself.
Try and commission your own photography rather than use stock imagery.
Video is becoming more and more important online. A good video can describe your products or services much more effectively than reams of text with a few still images.
5. Social Media Marketing.
It is increasingly important to embrace social media within your online marketing strategy. The basic concept, is to give away interesting or useful information and then attract an audience for it on sites such as Blogs, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. If users like this information, they will then read it, comment on it and hopefully share it with their contacts.
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| Topic(s): Featured Articles, Web Design Advice
Thanks for republishing Joe, drop by any time!
Luke | August 9th, 2010 at 9:28 am
I am surprised that you did not mention the “cross-browsiness” – so optimisation of the HTML/CSS for cross browser rendering especially when it comes to IE6 that still holds around 5% of a browser market which just in UK gives you a sum over 1million people (according to the stats 34,104,175 is connected to the internet in UK). You surely don’t want your sites to look different (have rendering errors) in several different browsers.
EvilUncle | November 16th, 2010 at 8:34 am
That is a given assumption here at SOZO, all our sites are carefully crossbrowser tested to ensure that they work in all browsers as a standard.
As of August 2010 the use of IE6 has dipped below 4% usage in the UK, infact, according to Statcounteras of October 2010 only 3.1% of browser share is IE6. This is enough to account only for corporate and governmental use of the browser, which is steadfastly stuck to. So less and less we worry about IE6.
It is our hope that as the global statistic (currently around 6%) drops, more digital agencies will follow suit, and slowly we can all work to embrace the HTML5/CSS3 standards.
Luke | November 30th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Thanks a lot for sharing this with all of us you really know what you’re talking about! Bookmarked. Please also visit my website =). We could have a link exchange contract between us!
Divorce Solicitor | June 9th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
I have grabbed your rss feed as I can’t find your e-mail subscription link or newsletter service. Do you have any? Please let me know so that I can subscribe! Thanks
Paul Tirley | July 12th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Hi Andrew thanks for asking!
The tips we have outlined above are not pulled from other sites, but rather things learnt by virtue of our collective experiences at SOZO.
Luke | August 4th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Hi Paul,
Glad that you found a blog useful enough to warrant a subscription.
We do not actually have a newsletter at this time, but we are looking to start one in the near future. Perhaps next time you drop by you can furnish us with an email address, that way when we get our newsletter up and running you can receive a copy!
Luke | August 4th, 2011 at 10:51 am