hi everyone, in this post I bring you small but informative article, about 19 Ways To Improve Your Site.
Usability/Accessibility
Because it matters. If people can’t use your site, they won’t stay.
- Navigation: Ensure that your navigation is easy to use and consistent. You may be able to use it, but could a newcomer find the information they desire?
- Search: If you don’t have a search box, then why not? Sometimes navigation isn’t enough. It may not be a 5 minute job to add a custom search facility, but it is extremely quick to add a third party search like Google’s.
- Click here: Why? Change this phrase everywhere on your site. It doesn’t make sense out of context. The user has to read the whole paragraph (which they probably won’t) to understand why they should click there. Consider phrases like “Download the profit/loss graph” or “Listen to the podcast entitled food for thought.”
- Title & Alt Attributes: Use them how they are supposed to be used. If you haven’t used any at all, then a quick fix will be to start adding them to navigation and other elements on every page.
- General: If you’ve got any code snippets that could annoy the user, like resizing browser windows or opening new pages in a new window, then remove them. Just because you like something a particular way, your users may not. Don’t take over their desktop.
Search Engine Optimisation - SEO
Because you want to be found.
- Titles: Add consistent, relevant but different titles (title tag) to every page in your site. If you already have titles, check that they are short and describe the content of the page.
- Link around: Internal links to your pages are just as important as external links. Besides the usability gain, you have the unique opportunity of specifying your link and title text.
- Strengthen keywords: Probably the quickest thing you can do. Highlight some keywords and phrases and add a strong tag (bold) around them. This shouldn’t be overused but can provide some positive results if used sparingly.
- Headers: The correct use of headers (in a semantic, logical manner) can produce fantastic results. The H1 tag is the most important - try using some keywords in there.
- Overkill: It seems whenever I speak to someone about SEO and give them some tips, they go way overboard. This can really ruin all the hard work you’ve done for the user. So remember, optimise with the user in mind. And stay away from dodgy SEO stuff - every time you use black-hat SEO, a kitten steps on broken glass.
Design/Development Process
Design is our passion. Let it show.
- Images: By all means create beautiful images, but don’t forget to optimise them for the web. You may have a quick connection - not everybody does.
- Design comes from scratch(pad): Don’t necessarily fire up your graphics editor before thinking about the design. It can only take 10 minutes to draw (you know - pencil and paper) various layouts and wireframe the design. Doing this will make you think more about placement of elements and less about the aesthetics.
- Contrast/Text-size: Ensure that contrast levels and text sizes are ‘acceptable’ - There are no golden figures (although recommendations are available) to aim for but at least check with other people using different setups. Just because you have perfect 20:20 vision doesn’t mean that anyone can read your site.
- Consistency: There’s nothing worse than a website that doesn’t function consistently. A user can find it hard enough to learn how a website is put together without having to remember all the little quirks and foibles on your site.
- Testing: Check (or get others to check) the site under as many conditions as possible. Try to do this every time the site has a significant update. It’s worth it as it only takes a minute or two.
Step-By-Step Videos To Creating Your Own Web 2.0 Graphics Using GIMP…
Content
That’s why people visit the site.
- Text/Whitespace: There’s a big trap that often people fall into. Whitespace. How many times have you heard “we need to fill that space and cram the text in a bit more” ? More text in a single area isn’t a good thing. It can make it harder and less enjoyable to read the content. It you had a shop would you cram as many products in as possible? No. You’d let them have space so they get noticed. Do the same with your text.
- Write for your audience: Can people understand your text? Think about your audience and reword those confusing sentences.
- Use interest: If someone has read an article or item of content, then it is fair to assume that they were interested. Instead of leaving them high-and-dry after an article, point them somewhere related, whether it be another article or a product perhaps.
- Objectives: When writing content, make a little mental note of what your goal is for the page (e.g. encourage registration) and try to guess what the users goal is (e.g. to get at information.) Match the two (e.g. “to find this information simply sign up”) and you’re golden.
And there we go. I hope this list is useful and has shown you how easy it is to improve various aspects of your website and its marketing. This isn’t exhaustive by any means - as I said earlier it takes effort and time to really get your site near-perfect. Evolution is the key: tweak, feedback, measure and repeat.
Free Traffic For Broke Marketers
If you like this post,you can buy me a beer! (Suggested: $3 a beer or $7.5 for a pitcher)
I am really get impressed with this one. complete list which should follow by every blogger. My blog was settled well but here I would get missing issues.