Small Biz Studio Blog http://www.outstandingsites.com Tips on how to maintain your Small Biz Studio web site. Learn to add pages, add photos and more. Website Content http://www.outstandingsites.com/small_biz_studio_blog/view/1127 Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:15:00 CST http://www.outstandingsites.com/small_biz_studio_blog?blogm=view&blogid=1127 Determine the goal of your website Your website must have an overall goal. That goal can be to get potential customers to contact you, a shopper to make a purchase on your site, mailing list signups or many more. You want to make sure that your website leads visitors to that goal.

If you want potental customers to contact you, make sure that you clearly provide your contact information and make it easy for them to send you their information. Put a link to a contact form on your home page.

Have people you know review your site

It is important to get good feedback on your site. You can learn a lot from other people and how they view your site. Send a link to your site to your friends, family, business associates and ask for feedback.

Focus on your content

Your content is what visitors see. Make sure that your site quickly answers the top questions that a visitor may have. Try to answer these questions on your home page. Many sites fail to include basic overview information about the site on the home page. They make you click on a lot of links just to find out what the site offers.

Create a clear message

Keep it simple. Provide a brief description of your services and products. If visitors can quickly see that you offer something they are interested in, they will stay on your site.

Call to action

Let visitors know what you want them to do. You can use images to direct people to specific areas of your site. Ex. "Click here for a free quote" This could be a graphic that stands out on the page that leads to a form to collect information. Don't assume that a visitor will know what you want them to do.

Keep everything short and quick

Most visitors have little patience. Keep everything quick and simple. Make sure the most important information on the page can be found by quickly scanning your pages.

Use titles/headlines to help visitors scan for information

Using page titles and headlines is a great way to help visitors scan your pages. They scan for a headline that they are interested in and then can read the details.

Important content at top of page

Keep your most important content and ideas near the top of your pages. If visitors do not see something they are interested in near the top of your pages, they won't scroll down.

Organize your content

Organize your content into logical pages and sections.

Put yourself in your visitors' shoes

Try to view your site as one of your potental visitors. Ask yourself what kind of questions you might have and think about the things that you look for when you are viewing another company's website. Try to make sure that you include the information and content that you commonly look for at other websites.

Use high quality images

People are visual. Images are a great way to communicate without words. High quality images can greatly enhance the effectivness if your website.]]>