The success or failure of your website is not determined by how good your web designer is or how skilled you are at website marketing - it is in fact determined well before your website is written. Only 5% of websites will ever appear on page 1 or page 2 of search engines for their desired keywords hence try to avoid these mistakes before you begin writing your website:
(For resources supporting this article please see my blog: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - Poor Keyword Research - There are many tools available to web designers where keyword research is concerned - not using these is the single worst mistake a web designer can make. Other than confirming what you suspected, keyword research usually reveals many niche terms that visitors use when looking for your kind of business/service. The niche terms (long tail keywords) with less traffic may in fact be more desirable to you as visitors are usually much more specific just before they make a buying decision.
2 - No Competitor Research - Not checking out your competitors could prove costly in terms of wasted time/money - without competitor research you won't be able to tell weather your page 1 competitors have a few or thousands of backlinks, and you wont be able tell how many content rich pages their websites have. Competitive research will also help you determine any areas you could improve as far as page planning is concerned. Moneysupermarket.com who usually rank no1 for 'mortgage' and have over 300 thousand backlinks & thousands of pages would hence cost a fortune to outrank
3 - Nothing Special to Offer - doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different - hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers - anything that distances you away from the average - If you make the effort so will your visitor
4 - Lack of Good Content - fail on this point & it doesn't matter what else you have got right - many visitors use search engines to resolve a problem: this could be: find a product, find a supplier, find a service provider etc - hence answer your visitors immediate question & provide plenty of supporting content. The more thoughtful you are with your content the more likely your visitors will turn into business
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Poor Choice of Hosting - cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use 'Geo Targeting' in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host's IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 - Poor Colour Choice - your website is not the place to express yourself - you have less than 3 seconds to make your first impression - hence choose a colour scheme that is perfect for your website - try colour matching your photos/logos/artwork & avoid drab/luminous colours. Take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have cultural significance & insure that your colours are web safe. Poor planning in this area is will make your website look amateur.
9 - Strange Fonts - consider that not all of us have perfect vision hence try not to make your visitors strain to read your content - use basic fonts such as Helvetica or Arial. Poor use of fonts is a certain way of your website becoming a victim of the back button. There are nor laws in place in a few countries that govern the use of text within websites - I haven't heard of anyone being sued yet, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
10 - Website Name & Suffix - choose a domain that contains your keywords & select the correct domain suffix (top level domain) - whilst using your keywords in your domain is not essential, it helps with towards your page ranking. Choosing the wrong suffix will not help you achieve listings in the right territory. Common UK TLD's:
.com - commercial/ecommerce website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - use for B2B business
.org.uk - organisation, group or charity
.info - informational sites - non e-commerce
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies
(For resources supporting this article please see my blog: Top 60 Web Design Mistakes of 2009)
1 - Poor Keyword Research - There are many tools available to web designers where keyword research is concerned - not using these is the single worst mistake a web designer can make. Other than confirming what you suspected, keyword research usually reveals many niche terms that visitors use when looking for your kind of business/service. The niche terms (long tail keywords) with less traffic may in fact be more desirable to you as visitors are usually much more specific just before they make a buying decision.
2 - No Competitor Research - Not checking out your competitors could prove costly in terms of wasted time/money - without competitor research you won't be able to tell weather your page 1 competitors have a few or thousands of backlinks, and you wont be able tell how many content rich pages their websites have. Competitive research will also help you determine any areas you could improve as far as page planning is concerned. Moneysupermarket.com who usually rank no1 for 'mortgage' and have over 300 thousand backlinks & thousands of pages would hence cost a fortune to outrank
3 - Nothing Special to Offer - doing exactly the same thing as your competitors is likely to make you blend into the abyss of failed or failing websites. Quality web design is all about being different - hence unless you spend some time planning to be better than your competitors then you are likely to fail. Think about better content, better visitor experience, easier navigation, special offers - anything that distances you away from the average - If you make the effort so will your visitor
4 - Lack of Good Content - fail on this point & it doesn't matter what else you have got right - many visitors use search engines to resolve a problem: this could be: find a product, find a supplier, find a service provider etc - hence answer your visitors immediate question & provide plenty of supporting content. The more thoughtful you are with your content the more likely your visitors will turn into business
5 - Lack of Page Planning - failing to plan each of your pages correctly will cause you a problem with 'on page factors' - these affect your position in search engines. The following should contain your researched keywords: page names, directory names, titles, descriptions, headings, footers, menu text, link text & paragraphs. Your menus should be simple/ text selectable & your primary keyworded heading should be displayed high on page. Your contact details should always be found easily.
6 - No Plan for Marketing - if your aim is to write a website which will drive business through web traffic and you haven't considered how this traffic will magically appear then you haven't made a marketing plan. Depending how competitive your industry is - you may need to build 10s, 100s or 1000s of backlinks using web partners, directories & blogs. This may take hours/week/years hence you will need a plan with timescales.
7 - Poor Choice of Hosting - cheap hosting deals overseas may not necessarily be good for your website as many search engines today use 'Geo Targeting' in some manner in their ranking algorithms and you visitors may find your website slower than your competitors. Where possible use host with servers located in your home country & look at live review sites before making a decision. If your site is geared for high traffic and/or overseas trade then use a dedicated server and insure you host has good peering agreements with the countries that you are likely to do business with. Always check your host's IP address to insure the servers really are based where the host claims they are.
8 - Poor Colour Choice - your website is not the place to express yourself - you have less than 3 seconds to make your first impression - hence choose a colour scheme that is perfect for your website - try colour matching your photos/logos/artwork & avoid drab/luminous colours. Take care when designing websites geared for other countries as certain colours have cultural significance & insure that your colours are web safe. Poor planning in this area is will make your website look amateur.
9 - Strange Fonts - consider that not all of us have perfect vision hence try not to make your visitors strain to read your content - use basic fonts such as Helvetica or Arial. Poor use of fonts is a certain way of your website becoming a victim of the back button. There are nor laws in place in a few countries that govern the use of text within websites - I haven't heard of anyone being sued yet, but I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise.
10 - Website Name & Suffix - choose a domain that contains your keywords & select the correct domain suffix (top level domain) - whilst using your keywords in your domain is not essential, it helps with towards your page ranking. Choosing the wrong suffix will not help you achieve listings in the right territory. Common UK TLD's:
.com - commercial/ecommerce website (UK &/or International)
.co.uk - corporate website
.net - larger network website - typically used by web hosts
.biz - use for B2B business
.org.uk - organisation, group or charity
.info - informational sites - non e-commerce
.name - for an individual or organization
.ltd - requests only accepted from ltd companies
About the Author:
The author is an Ecommerce/Web Design Consultant with 12 years experience in the Web/IT Industries. He works with designers for many large PLC's such as: Vodafone, Coca Cola & Npower - see web design Birmingham for more information.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar