I have a few recommended best practices for you to be thinking about while developing your website. These are basic and will help you build a powerful website that ranks well. These are the basics for all websites and before we can dig into some of the more fun topics this must be covered.
1. Website design layout.
A. Must be clean; avoid cute little animations that distract the eyes. These keep people from the content that helps convert the visitor into a client.
B. Must have EASY navigation. I know that the cute navigation looks good. But basic and standard navigation that looks like everyone else will keep visitors from leaving your site.
C. Make sure your navigation is not an IMAGE. This is a huge mistake that MANY entertainers make. Search engines do not like image links.. PERIOD.
D. Get your Phone # above the fold (the fold is the imaginary line drawn on your website that represents the content that is visible on page load without the need to scroll.)
E. DON’T USE FRAMES: Search engines hate them. MOVE ON
2. Pages you MUST have.
A. Home page: This should be a basic overview of your company with good content that leads potential clients to your services page and/or your blog.
B. Contact Us Page: This page should not list your EMAIL. That is a GREAT way to get spam. It should be a web form that sends you an email. This is also a way to prequalify a potential client.
C. Services Page’s: You need an overview services page and then a page for each service you offer. Why? Because each service will rank for different keyword phrases and you want to get the most coverage possible.
3. On-Page Factors that you should never forget
A. Topical Title tags: Let’s don’t talk about the hundreds of site reviews that I do each month where this VERY basic thing is not done correctly. Your title tag for each page should be topical for the page it is on, and each page should have a unique title. PERIOD. If you call me wanting a site review after reading this without this 1 step being done. You will hear a LOUD THUD as I bang my head on the keyboard AGAIN. This is a MUST.
B. Topical Headers: These are the font size tags like H1 H2 H3 – H6. The search engines give the content weight based on the content of these tags. So if your page title is one thing and the H1 is a different topic EX. Title= Home page of BoBo’s Balloons and the H1= BoBo’s Birthday Extravaganza …. Google is going to say. “Site irrelevant, move it down the list”.
C. Color Changing Text is BAD: Using up to 3 changes in color or bold text is good to emphasize content or a section of content. More than that it becomes distracting and you should just use solid black.
OK this is DAY 1 of 10, and it is just a basic look at things you need to change by MONDAY so you are on track to a high-ranking website.