“The only thing I’m trying to duplicate is the victory…” – Milt Stegall
Well-written, compelling content takes time and money to create. A two-page white paper can easily price out at over $1,000 if done by a professional. Why use that white paper on a landing page as a one-time offering? How about repurposing that white paper and create more pages for the website; expanding the content and giving the SEO people more pages to add search terms to?
Search engines demand that page content on a website not grow stale. Some sort of content refreshing plan needs to be developed and executed.
Large sites obviously need a more comprehensive plan than do smaller websites.
Because websites are usually not under the control of a single person things seem to go wrong over time. Images go missing, forms stop working and entire pages are not found. No one knows why and no one wants to take responsibility of these happenings.
With all the spelling checkers out there is there really a good excuse for spelling errors in the content? Nothing torpedoes a good call-to-action like a reading a spelling error in the sales pitch.
Businesses that have small to medium websites may think a website content map is overkill. Perhaps; but even a simple content map can be a useful vehicle when updating the pages and content associated with the website.Let’s bring everyone into this discussion by defining a content map first. Then we’ll look at how it is used.
There are a number of tools on the Web where a person can analyze a website to get an idea of how it generally complies with the accepted guidelines of a properly constructed site. Unfortunately there are many accepted rules that very web developers should follow and then there are the guidelines they may or may not adhere to. Guidelines are just that suggested rules. So some web designers follow them while others stray at times. There is one problem that crops up. The analytic tools are not flexible. If a site does not have a blog points are taken off on the final score. There are certainly times a website would not have a blog. It would be nice if before running the program a person could decide what they want rated. A good tool set to look at is developed by HubSpot.com.
“Don’t let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.” – William Feather
Here are five items to consider when deciding on how to make the navigation on the website as easy to use as possible:
Organize the menu selections with how the visitor might navigate the information
Often times, defining goals and expectations and writing down a plan of action tend to lose their importance as a project nears the launch stage. But, let us look at why it is important to have goals and expectations whether we plan on launching a redesign of the current website, an Internet marketing blitz or a funding a search engine optimization strategy.
After we look at defining website goals we’ll learn the steps necessary to develop a successful action plan.
Why is it that some people are reluctant to give a status report of where they are on a particular phase of a project? It cannot be that they finished their part of the project ahead of time and are too humble and do not want to receive accolades? Is it they have not even started their piece of the assignment and are hiding the truth? Perhaps they have so much to do they cannot be bothered with one more meeting.
Asking for references is usually what a company or individual thinks about as the Web project is coming apart at the seams. The problem is it may be too late to separate themselves from the contractor doing the harm.
“Word-of-mouth” is probably the best method of compiling sound references. Seek testimonials from your business contacts and colleagues.
Let us talk about two boiler-plate issues before we get into designing a strong web presence or looking at the tactics that attract visitors to the site. The following items are required no matter whose program or logic you subscribe to:
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