I think we can all agree that 2021 has got to be a better year than 2020!
Prepare for a great business year by improving your website in order to attract more customers. Here are 21 best website ideas to bring you more traffic and more sales:
- Include location names for the geographic area you serve. They are critical keywords that help you rank higher in local search, and often omitted. Cities, towns, counties, regions.
- Title tag in browser bar is among most important ranking factors. Include the words people type in to find you, up to 57 characters. Business name, primary products & services.
- Keyword(s) in page headline are also critical for SEO. “Welcome to our website” or “Hello!” don’t attract visitors. Use words people search for, like “Wilmington Contractor…”
- YouTube video – create a short 30-60 second marketing video and upload to your [free] youtube account. Then easily embed it in website. Visitors like it. Google likes it.
- News page instead of blog (which needs consistent posting). Use a blog format for ease of use, but post anything from brief comments, tweets and announcements to news articles.
- Accept online payments using PayPal or similar credit card processing to take a deposit to make prospects commit or sell a product before they lose interest.
- Bullet point lists can never be used too much. They employ less words, but the keywords and your key points stand out. Much easier for visitors to scan than long paragraphs of text.
- Lots of sub-headings help people navigate your pages more quickly than reading blocks of content. Plus, you can include keywords in both subheading and the paragraph under it.
- Image Optimization -Photos should be representative of the page text and include search terms in file name, alt text (for vision impaired), title, description and caption.
- Call To Action (CTA) should be incorporated at least once in every single page of website. Call Now, Contact Us (linking to your contact form), Join Our List, Visit Our Store…
- Concise Navigation Menu reduces confusion. With only a few seconds to scan your page, fewer choices are better. And on mobile, we’d rather scroll than click.
- Slideshows quickly show visitors what you offer. Add a title to each slide and link to click to the appropriate page, product or service— where you place your Call To Action.
- Opt-in forms help you gather email addresses to build your list. Offer a “free report”, special discount, monthly newsletter or other bonuses to make it valuable.
- Customer Reviews are a huge selling tool. Testimonials from others are like a personal referral to your business, so include some on your Home page. See my reviews page.
- SSL Certificate is now necessary for every website. It removes the “not secure” in Chrome browser bar and helps rank. Change http to https so your visitors trust you more.
- Mobile-first. Since more than half of your visitors may be viewing on their phone. Place critical content and signature images early on every page. Place details lower.
- Multimedia improves search rank. Images, videos, PDF’s, other media may act as a content quality signal for google and are helpful to humans, besides making pages pretty.
- Internal links from one page to another on your site help visitors jump to what they seek and also help your SEO. So when listing your categories in text, make them links!
- NAP – Name, Address & Phone of business should appear on each page, usually in footer. It should exactly match in each search engine, directory, social media channel.
- Keywords in footer help you sneak in important search terms an extra time, which makes Google happy! Site footer/copyright is on every page in small print, so just add to it.
- Privacy Policy page is important, even if just linked to in footer. It puts visitors at ease and is legally becoming more critical for your own protection.
All of the above are included in websites by Webmaster Ray, at my unbeatable prices.
But wait, there’s more…
- Free one-hour website admin training session (live or via Zoom).
- Get best prices on web hosting / SSL / domain registration, if needed
- I’ll create or improve your Google My Business profile (extremely valuable)
- Submission to Google, Bing, and other online directories.
Contact Webmaster Ray with any questions at all or call me now at 302-633-1482(o). 21 Top Website Tips 2021 (pdf)