Inside the Briefcase

Augmented Reality Analytics: Transforming Data Visualization

Augmented Reality Analytics: Transforming Data Visualization

Tweet Augmented reality is transforming how data is visualized...

ITBriefcase.net Membership!

ITBriefcase.net Membership!

Tweet Register as an ITBriefcase.net member to unlock exclusive...

Women in Tech Boston

Women in Tech Boston

Hear from an industry analyst and a Fortinet customer...

IT Briefcase Interview: Simplicity, Security, and Scale – The Future for MSPs

IT Briefcase Interview: Simplicity, Security, and Scale – The Future for MSPs

In this interview, JumpCloud’s Antoine Jebara, co-founder and GM...

Tips And Tricks On Getting The Most Out of VPN Services

Tips And Tricks On Getting The Most Out of VPN Services

In the wake of restrictions in access to certain...

5 Tips for a Stand Out Website

March 26, 2018 No Comments

Featured article by Calvin Paige, Independent Technology Author

You have a whole world of information held within your palm. The internet can provide you information about anything that you can imagine – if you are thinking of something, the chances are high that somewhere, someone on the globe has had a similar thought and written about it. While this mindboggling situation is wonderful, it can be problematic if you are trying to start a business and you realize that the world is your competition: if you have had this business idea, chances are high that scores, if not hundreds and thousands, of people have had the similar thought. So how do you make your business stand out of the crowd? Here are 5 tips to make your business website the one out of the 600 million that people want to visit.

1. Know Your Target Customer

You need to know who your target customer is going to be so that your site can be geared towards their likes and dislikes. The very first step to a successful website is understanding who your customer is in terms of their demographic. You don’t want your site to be unattractive to the very people that you need to sell your products and services to. Hopefully you will already have considered your target market in your business plan, and so this should be nothing new to you.

You don’t want to waste time and resources making a site that will not serve its purpose, and once you have a clear notion as to who you are aiming your site at, you can develop it to play to their likes and motivations. The data that you collect about your customers can be used to develop growth hacking strategies. Growth hacking strategies are essentially shortcut digital tactics that use customer data to grow your business quickly.

2. Be Clear

You may have very firm ideas about what your business does and what it can provide to the public at large, but has that translated on to your website? You need to give your site’s visitors a clear message that is easy to understand. The temptation is to be everything to everyone, but you need to remain focused on your core message of what you are offering. Think of your homepage as the equivalent to a brick and mortar store’s display window: it should be self-explanatory about what is inside from a quick glance.

Not only will visitors appreciate the clarity, but the search engines’ bots will be able to categorize your website efficiently and you will rank higher on their search engines results page. Overcomplicating the message of your business will lose you valuable leads and potential sales.

3. Easy Navigation

The very reason that people use online stores to purchase products or services is for convenience. If your site is hard to navigate around to find what they are looking for, visitors will not stay with you. Pages need to be well structured and uniform in the way that information is displayed. Visitors will soon become familiar with how the site is engineered and will become frustrated if the layout of every page is different and they can’t find the information that is relevant to them in a logical manner.

4. SEO Friendly Content

The content that you display should be optimized to increase your search engine rankings. Your content should be unique to your site, search engines do not like duplicated material, and include keywords that are relevant to your business and industry that will help the bots further understand how to categorize the site within their indices.

Do not restrict your SEO to the main bulk of content, but also incorporate it into the saved titles of images, page titles and metatags (even though these are not visible to visitors, the bots can see them). Every piece of information that you include in your website should be there because it adds value.

5. Look at the Metrics

When your site has been up and running for a period of time, you will be able to access key figures and metrics for the number of visitors your pages have had. You will be able to develop an understanding as to which were more successful, and which were less so. Spend some time to identify what makes these pages more appealing to visitors. What have you done differently? It may be the content is more relevant, or the offer that you are promoting is popular. You will be able to replicate the success of these pages if you have identified what has heightened their appeal.

Starting an online business is an exciting opportunity for you. It can be easy to lose track of your goals and objectives, but your site must be customer focused and relevant – to both the customer and the bots that rank it in the search engine pages.

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

(required)

(required)


ADVERTISEMENT

Gartner

WomeninTech