Area one covers things you should know to help you understand the world of websites and some of the terminology involved.
Before you start any design work you need to know what development features you require to achieve your goals.
The design and navigational structure of your website is key to maximising your conversion rates and return on investment.
There are several ways to market a website and they are all aimed at improving visitor numbers and your online presence.
Website Design Knowledge Centre Area 3 - The Design & Construction
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In this area we cover all aspects surrounding the look and feel of a website, the navigational structure and the On-page Search engine Optimisation (SEO). Whether you are designing a website in-house or having a website development company carry out the project, it will be of great value to know the information in this area. The topics below will ensure you end up with a great looking website that both the human visitor and the Search Engines will regard as relevant and trustworthy.
Website contact forms
Contact forms are a key part of any website, making it easy for a visitor to get in touch with you and your business is key to maximising your websites conversion rate.
Many websites goals are to get that all important first contact with a prospective customer, do this and your half way to making a sale.
Contact forms can be as simple as the one at the bottom of this page or you may want to receive more information from the visitor. Making a form easy to understand and complete will give you a higher completion rate and if you require information on what product or service somebody is interested in, give them a drop down menu or a select option so they can easily and quickly complete the form with out having to type to many words in to text boxes.
Set up a thank you page so that once a form has been completed and sent the visitor is navigated to a thank you page that informs them your have received the message and will be in touch.
You can also set up an email auto respond that will send an email to the visitors email address stating that you have received the information. This auto response can also be personalised towards the customer stating there name and what the enquiry was concerning.
Customer surveys & questionnaires.
Incorporating customer surveys, questionnaires and feedback forms on your website is a great way of receiving vital information from your visitors and starting the communication process between potential customers.
These forms can be as long or as short as you require, from a simple question like 'What is your favorite colour' to an extensive questionnaire with multiple options and dozens of questions.
No matter what size of form your require you have to make it look and feel right to the websites visitors, making a form as easy as possible to complete using drop down menus and select boxes will give you a far greater completion percentage.
Once a form has been completed the information can be emailed directly to any email address you require and the visitor should then be navigated to a thank you page informing them that the information has been received and you will be in touch. You may also set up a auto respond that will automatically send an email to the person that completed the form with a brief run down of what options they selected and what will happen next.
Google Analytics Tracking
It is vital for the long term success of your website that you gather a much information as possible on how many visitors your website is receiving, what keywords and phrases your visitors use, your bounce rates and much more.
Google Analytics is a FREE website analysis tool that tracks a wide range of information about your websites visitors. This information will help your to understand your visitors trend and improve your website on an ongoing basis.
Some of the key features of Google analytics are:
Visitor numbers: Find out how many visitors your website has received in one day or one year.
Keywords used: What keywords are being used to find your website in the search engines.
Landing pages: What pages do visitors land on first.
Bounce rates: Are visitors navigating your website or leaving after the first page.
What city are visitors from: What country and city and your visitors from.
How long do visitor spend on your website: Average time spent of your website as a whole or individually.
The information gathered from Google Analytics will help you to understand what pages are working for your business and which ones are failing your business. Information on individual pages will help you to improve that pages productivity and increase your websites overall ROI.
The Google analytics tool tracks all visitors to your website not only those coming from Googles Search Engine.
On-page SEO
The process of On-page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is carried out on the actual website pages, this covers all the aspects that a human visitor can see and the behind the scenes coding that the Search Engine spiders see.
On-page SEO is the main influence on what position your website will achieve is the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), this is a must for all websites and should be carried out by a professional to ensure the maximum ROI (Return On Investment) for your business.
Some of the main areas covered by On-page SEO include:
1. Meta titles
2. Meta descriptions
3. Image alt tags
4. Image title tags
5. Page URLs
6. Sitemaps xml & html
7. Key phrase weight, prominence and frequency in page headers, body text, titles, description and URLs.
8. Robot.txt files
9. H1-H6 Headers
10. Internal link text
On-page SEO is offered by all profession web development companies and is a must for any new or existing website, if you are talking to a web development company and one of their main focuses is not SEO they we advise you carry out further research in to this area of website design so you can make an informed decision, helping you to make the right choices first time around.
Several companies offer SEO as part of a package or include it in the cost, this will only included two or three parts of SEO and will not have the desired effect on your websites page ranking and position in the SERPs. A professional SEO campaign includes over 200 different factors and if not carried out in the correct order and way they will not have the desired effect.
Always ask a web development company exactly what is involved in the SEO of your website and what areas they are going to cover. Ask to see completed project and search terms that they show up for in Google and other search engines.
404 error pages and 301 redirects
404 error pages
A 404 error page is a page on a website that loads if a visitor attempts navigates to page on a website that no longer existing or has been moved to another location or URL.
If you don't incorporate a 404 error page in to your website all broken links, moved pages etc. will have your visitors navigating to a generic browser 404 error page that navigates the visitor away from you website and give the impression that website no longer exist. If you have a specific 404 error page on your website then the visitor will be navigated to that page and you can give them the options of navigating to other pages that may help them find what they are looking for.
404 error pages are aim at keeping a visitor on your website if they follow a broken link or old link that does not exist anymore.
301 Redirects
301 Redirects are the professional way of telling Google and other search engine that a specific page or a complete website has changes its address.
If you have a single page on a website that is now moving to another directory or you are changing the page name, you still want visitor to find that page and you still want to retain your pang ranking and position in the search engines. A 301 redirect will redirect all the visitors, page rank and position in the search engines to the new page.
If you are changing the complete URL of your website from www.oldwebsitename.co.nz to www.newwebsitename.co.nz but all the content is staying the same you don't want to loose all the page ranking and positions in the Search engines so you would use a 301 redirect to tell Google this page or website has permanently move to this new address and please send all visitors and page rank to this new address.
Also there many be thousands of links to your old website on the net and you still want them links to navigate visitors to your new URL.
Website landing pages
A website landing page is the first page a visitor lands on when navigated to your website via a search engine listing, blog link and other methods. Most people think that the home page of their website is the page a visitor lands on first and then navigates to other parts of the website from there.
This is not the case, your home will be your main landing page but on a large site the other pages combined will have a higher percentage on visitors landing on them.
For instance if you have a product page that shows up high in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) this link will sometimes point directly to that specific page and not to your home. As with this page if you type website landing page in Google and we came up in the listings Google would bring you straight to this page as this is the information you are searching for.
You may also build a specific landing page for a Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign, this way when you pay for a link to your website in the sponsored links at the top of Google result pages you can navigate that visitor straight to the product or service they are searching for and dramatically increase the chances of a sale.
Landing pages can also be A-B tested so you can send 50% of visitors to one page and 50% to another a test the response from each page. This will allow you to determine with page has the higher conversion rates and then make that the main page or keep testing and improving to maximise your websites ROI.
Website links
There are three types of website links, internal links, outbound links and inbound links.
Internal links: Internal links are the links on your website that help visitors navigate the pages of your website, your main menu and footer links are all examples of internal links.
Outbound links: Outbound links point to other website, blogs, social network etc. that are not part of your website but may be of interest to your visitors. When using outbound links you should take the follow in to consideration:
Make links rel=nofollow so you don't send any of your website page rank to other website.
When linking to other websites make a new web browser window open so the visitor is not navigating away from your website.
Make sure all links have some relevance to your visitors.
Inbound links: Inbound links are links that point to your website from other websites, blog, article etc. These link are very important to your website and will help improve your websites page ranking with Google and visitor numbers. When trying to build inbound links make sure the websites linking to your site are relevant to your site subject and are located in the same area or country. A quality inbound link on a local related website is worth thousands of links from unrelated website in another country.
Never purchase links from companies offering thousands of links or high page rank links, try building your links by building a quality website with lots of helpful information, FREE stuff and giving your visitor a reason to link to your website. These links will stand the test of time and be highly targeted resulting in a much higher conversion rate from visitors coming through these links.
Website look & feel
The way your website looks and feels to a visitor is key to making your visitor want to navigate through your website to see more and purchase a product or contact via one of your online forms.
The look of your website: Your website has to look professional, giving the representation that your business is a reputable company and a market leader in its field. You also have to design the website knowing what your market audience are searching for and what products and services you offer.
On average you only have 5 seconds for your website page to load, to grab a visitors attention and have them wanting to see more. When designing a website you should take the follow in to consideration:
Don't design a flash animated website: Flash animated websites hold very large files and can take a long time to load.
Don't use large images: Large images will slow the page down and images may load 10 seconds or more after the text.
Use the right colour: Colour choice is important in the design of your website. Click here for more details.
Page width: Never design a wide page that a visitor will have to scroll horizontally.
Call to actions: Have clear call to actions so visitors can send you information as easily as possible.
The feel of your website: The feel of your website is based around the navigational structure and you should make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find the information and services as quick as possible.
When construction the websites navigational aspects you should take the following in to consideration:
Drop down menus: Don't try to cram all your pages and products in to drop down menus with subcategories and several options. This will confuse a visitor and they will navigate to another website.
3 Clicks or less: All pages should be accessible from the home page in three clicks or less.
Call to actions: Make it easy for visitor to contact you from any page on your website.
Website navigational structure
Hard to navigate websites is one of the biggest mistakes companies make when developing a website.
Remember KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
When constructing the navigational structure of your website follow these simple step:
Every page on your website should be within three clicks of your home page.
Don't overload drop down menus with subcategories.
Have a html sitemap.
Keep your visitors in mind, why are they visiting your website, what pages do they want to view?
Clear call to actions and links to them on every page.
If you have several product or services break them down in to categories.
Don't try to cram every product and service on to the home page.
Use footer links to navigate visitors to the correct general area of your website.
Website Newsletters & Memberships
Website newsletters and memberships are a great way to start the communication process between you and a prospective customer. Having sign up forms, newsletters and FREE offers for members will have your mailing list growing fast.
Offering FREE information and discounts through a mailing list is a great online marketing strategy, keeping in touch with your customers and informing them a new products and services we boost your online sales dramatically.
Website Page Speed
The speed your website loads on a visitors browser is vital to a successful website, on average you have just 5 seconds for your website to load, grab the visitors attention and have them wanting to see more.
Page speed also has an impact on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts and a slow loading page will have a negative impact.
When developing your website keep the following in mind:
Don't use flash animation
Don't use large high resolution images
Don't use image backgrounds
Host video files on third party hosts i.e.. YouTube.
Keep JavaScript to a minimum and if possible use the jQuery library.
Reduce all image resolution by 10%
Use the latest web development codes and CSS
Where possible compress files and remove white space
Video Centre
Visit our video centre to watch official Google information clips covering topics on all aspects of website design, development and online marketing.