Think Like a Search Engine – 5 Tips for Effective Website Structures
Website structure is important to your on-line presence and success. Here are 5 tips to help you think like a search engine:
Focus & Layout
- Focus on the products/services that are most valuable to your consumers.
- On the homepage, prominently display your phone number and a call to action.
- Make your highest valued products/services the focus of your second navigation bar and continue the process until all that’s left is About/Contact Us.
Site Map
- The site map tells search engines what is contained within your site, likened to what a table of contents does for a book. Search engines like organized content for each page.
- Submit site maps to search engines so they crawl your site to index the information, which is directly related to your keywords for each page.
Flash and Java Script - Less is More
- Flash can do some really cool things, but search engines do not index anything inside a flash file nor can they read text on images. Use enough to stand out but don’t overdo it. Use flash/java script carefully.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
- The W3C sets standards for web design, including site structure. A website designed to W3C standards is search engine friendly, thus key to building proper on-line presence.
Conversions
- Make sure your website converts traffic into sales. Make the process easy for your customers to find what they want with the fewest clicks, also a good reason for calls to action on the homepage. Again, less is more.
