5 Minutes Improvements To Your Site
Posted on May 4, 2009. Filed under: Accessibility, Blog, Blogs, code, content, design, Help, how-to, Improvement, Internet, seo, techniques, tips, website | Tags: 404 page, Accessibility, animation, code, coding, content, css, design, development, direction, google rank, improve, Improvement, industry, link, links, logo, methods, new, news, off site, pagerank, read, readability, readable, rss, seo, site improvement, sitemap, tags, text, tips, title, usability, user, visibility, ways, web technology |
I have tried to collect 25 Ways to improve your site but with a twist. I’m offering you, dear reader, tips to improve your site in various ways – each one only taking approximately 5 minutes.
The Tips
Disclaimer: The tips I’ve come across took me about 5 minutes to complete on website’s I’ve built. Everyone builds sites differently so times may vary. 🙂
Usability/Accessibility
1. Use your logo: Link it to your homepage. Sounds simple enough but it will save time for your users.
2. Make links obvious: It’s a quick job to style them so they contrast against regular body copy.
3. Make text readable: Don’t worry about cramming text so small so it stays ‘above the fold’ – let your text breathe by adding line height and space. And don’t be shy about increasing your font size.
4. Make a useful 404 page: Maybe put a few words to explain what a 404 error is and point people to your site map, homepage or search facility.
5. Offer a way to contact: Sounds simple, but if there is no way to contact you, people may not be able to tell you of issues on the site.
SEO
1. Add title attributes: Add relevant title attributes to your main navigation. It will strengthen on-page SEO with very little effort.
2. Create a Google site map: There are many generators and it only takes minutes. You can increase your website’s saturation almost instantly.
3. Optimise title tags: Check title tags are relevant on your key pages and improve them where necessary.
4. Check headers: Check that pages make use of H1, H2 and H3 tags. Check that these contain your main keywords (and still make perfect sense to the reader. No spammy tactics, else a kitten will tread on broken glass remember.)
5. Link from your copy: Often forgotten about, why not interlink from key pages deeper into the site?
Design/Development
1. Feedback: Get a few people to make one suggestion each about your site. It’s easy to be blind to mistakes on your own website.
2. Browsers: Check your main website’s functionality in (e-commerce/gallery etc) in as many browsers as possible. Note any issues to fix later.
3. Give direction: Your homepage isn’t an ‘about’ page. Give visitors a reason to click around. (Log in / Sign up / Request brochure etc.)
4. Let the user be in control: Avoid popups, resizers and all those nasty things. It’s the users browser, not yours. Most popups can simply be placed on a new page.
5. Animation: I’m not against a bit of useful animation, but don’t let images animate continually whilst the user is trying to read the content or look at a product. It’s like trying to sell a car to someone whilst dancing around distractingly in the background in a giant banana suit. Almost.
Content
1. Rewrite: Read your opening paragraph. If it doesn’t engage you then rewrite it.
2. Simplify: If you use too much jargon, replace as many instances as you can with clear wording. Jargon doesn’t help anyone.
3. RSS: Let your RSS feed be auto-discovered. It’s easier for the user to locate that way.
4. Don’t overdo it: People don’t have all day. Put key information in succinct paragraphs on the page. Waffling (except for around here!) is not for the web.
5. Accessible: Check that you can access all the key pages of your site as a first time user. You may need a volunteer or two to test this theory.
Off Site
1. Visibility: Check that you’re high in Google for your company name. If not, add a few links to your site with the company name in the link.
2. Be nice: Answer a question on a forum about your speciality. You’ll gain a friend and some respect. Authority = traffic.
3. Get involved: If you’re not on (by on I mean even a basic profile/listing) all of the cool places to hang out (Facebook for instance) then sign up. People may be looking for your services via these channels.
4. Read: Read stuff on the internet? But it’s all fake? I kid. Read a news story about your industry – it may come in handy as a reference.
5. Stay Ahead: Similar to the above, except this time keep an eye on new web technology. If you can use a new technology to your advantage and you get in there first then you may have just carved out a niche.
Helped?
I hope that it helped out a few of you with little time on your hands. Let me know your quick tips by leaving a comment.
(courtesy Andrew Faulkner)
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