Guide for a productive website...

Your website exists to serve the people who have chosen to visit it.
It must provide a informative and frustration free visit everytime.

How is this done?
By allowing users to get the information they want as simply and quickly as possible (fewest clicks rule is a good guide). This objective is supported by focusing on your core revenue stream benefits whilst minimising diversions and trivialities.

Most websites should include the following as a minimum:

On all pages:

• Company name / logo
• Telephone number, landline if possible
• Email address
• Call(s) to action

On your home page:

• Key Benefits of you product or service (in brief)
• Best possible images of your product (or illustrative of your service)
• If a local service is offered, the area covered
• If business or service is location based, your hours of business
• Relevant qualifications you hold (in brief)
• Your relevant experience (in brief)
• Trade body membership if held
  

Prominently shown elsewhere:

• Key Benefits of you product or service (in detail)
• More best possible images of your product (or illustrative of your service)
• Relevant qualifications you hold (in detail)
• Your relevant experience (in detail)
• Key terms of business (prices / guarantees)
• Testimonials
• UK address if possible
• Company reg. details if a "Ltd" company

Make your website pages R.A.D.I.S.O.L. pages
This following approach will satisfy your visitors, the major search engines, make your site more findable and hopefully much more productive for you!

RELEVANT

If the person finding your site doesn't need to know "where you went to school" don't waste their time and yours telling them. Write your text strictly on a "customer needs to know" basis - it really works! Try to reduce your text content by half, and then reduce it again. Be ruthless. Your text content should also be unique and not found elsewhere on the web, this really makes search engines "happy".

ADVERTISEMENT

Try to make your home page specifically a "brief stand alone" advertisement for your product or services. Your content should  be clear, concise and to the point!

DESIGN

Your home (first) page's content and layout should capture a visitor's attention fast and then clearly present the information they need. Fail in this and they may well click elsewhere. A simple and consistent design is important! Most web users (including your potential customers) have short attention spans. We will work with you to ensure best results.

Distractions on your page should be avoided. For example a home page that takes time to load and then has no information except a clever graphic, is time (and money) wasted and an annoyance to most people. (most click the "skip intro" button if provided anyway).

Your pages should be easy to understand, simple & intuitive to navigate. People visiting your new site will, in order, look at your image(s), headlines / bullet points and then, if they are still interested, your text. Think about it, isn't this the way you surf the net? You are not alone!

Most Internet users will read only the first couple of sentences or paragraphs on a page. Research suggests that average users read less than 30% of page content. - Try to have the most important content towards the top of the page, MAKE THAT 30% COUNT!

IMAGES

The value of high quality images on today's websites cannot be underestimated. Specific images of your products, workplace, logo, vehicle or yourself should be the best you can produce. Larger companies invest in a professional photo shoots but with a little care, patience and a reasonable digital camera, excellent results are possible. Images are the FIRST thing visitors look at and first impressions count. See panel to the left for some tips on images.

SEARCH TERMS

If you want to maximise your chances of being found on the major search engines it is very important to choose relevant search terms. These terms should be included "as is" if possible, within the text of your home page. Find out more about choosing your search terms by clicking here

OPTIONS

Provide your visitors clearly shown options (calls to action) to either move on within your site or to contact you straightaway to find out more.

LIST

On your home page identify & list prominently the things that set your business apart (unique selling points) from anyone else offering the same thing. Are you cheaper, more qualified, more experienced, faster, offering longer guarantees, better quality, free call out and estimates etc. etc. Sounds obvious but your visitors will be much more interested in these benefits than "where you went to school"!

We can produce your text content if required

If you're short on time, we can produce the text for your site either in part or in full, if you would like a quotation for this please give us a call, but remember, you already know your potential customers and what they'll need from your website far better than us.

Our role at this point is to listen to your brief and then produce a website to deliver both your's and your customers' objectives (Are they the same? - they should be!).

The process we have devised, and which follows, will get your new site up and running a quickly as possible while keeping you fully involved at every stage.

Let's get started - click here