Everyone has a website these days. There were more than 1.7 billion websites on the Internet in 2019.
Having a website is your best and cheapest means of advertising. But the sheer number of websites means you have to put a lot of thought into yours.
What makes a website and web page good? What particular pages should you update on a regular basis? What is SEO, and what are some simple techniques you can integrate right now?
Answer these questions and you can create a website for free that people want to visit. Here is your quick guide.
Identify User Goals
A website is good when it provides information that a user wants. It is okay to be entertaining or a little promotional, but the important thing is to be informational.
Think to yourself why a user is searching for your company. If you offer services like air conditioning repair, the user is probably looking for those services. They want to know what you can do for them and how much your work costs.
But users may want to know more about your industry. This is especially the case for people looking for medical or financial information.
They want to know about symptoms of a disease in case they have them. They may want to take out a loan, and they want to know what that is like.
Users do not click on a company’s page for entertainment. But if you have an artistic or creative business, you should have a website that looks good. You should provide examples of your works, including videos and high-definition photographs.
Generate a list of goals and try to provide a page that satisfies each one. Have one page about your services, and have a separate page for price ranges.
Learn How to Create a Website
There are several ways you can create your own website, even with minimal experience. You can use a service like WordPress, which contains functions for pages and regular updates.
You can take the hard route and make your own website from scratch. This is far more difficult, but it gives you more flexibility and creativity. Secure a domain name, then start your coding.
You can find plenty of books on how to make a website. You can also go to graphic designers and other experts for support.
If you don’t have time to build your own website, you can hire someone for you. You should supervise their work so it is to your liking. Get some advice on how you can make updates and fixes on your own.
Focus on Your Essential Pages
When you need to update your website in a time crunch, prioritize your most important pages. Your home page offers the first impression of your business to most customers.
Write a short description of your business and include a website icon with your company logo. Leave a call-to-action that directs the visitor to another important page.
Your about page provides more details on what your company offers. Provide your company history and mission statement, but don’t go overboard. Leave some white space and include photographs so the user has a break from the text.
Your contact us page might be your biggest lead driver. Many small businesses make their money by providing a contact form and information so customers can reach them. Put your company phone number and email right at the top, then place a form below them.
You should have a page where you link to different blog posts. Each blog post should go on its own page. Keep the index clean with titles in bold and short descriptions of each post.
Optimize for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a platform of techniques that make websites easier for search engine algorithms to rank. It is hard to incorporate all techniques in a natural fashion, but you can use several of them. Visit websites like https://www.paulbarrs.com/sunshine-coast/seo so you can learn them.
Make your pages easy to scan. Limit your paragraphs to three sentences, and limit each sentence to 20 words. Try to keep to a 9th-grade reading level, minimizing your use of complicated vocabulary.
For every 500 words you write, you should include at least one internal link. Put a link to another page on your website, but make sure it is natural.
You should put in one external link. Do not link to competitors, even ones that are located far away. Government and education institutions are usually best, especially for background information at the start of posts.
Never plagiarize someone else’s content or leave grammatical errors in place. You may be removed outright from search results.
Sew in some keywords that local users type to find different web pages. Adopt a primary keyword for each page and blog post. Put it in twice for every 500 words you write.
Then throw in some secondary keywords related to the primary one. Select two or three and sprinkle them throughout your content.
How to Attract People to Your Website
You must build a strong website in order to be successful. Think about why users are clicking on your pages. Supply enough information to meet their desire and nothing more.
Learn about website creation, even if you don’t make your own. You should study how to update your pages, especially important ones like your about page.
Follow several basic SEO principles. Keep your pages readable with short paragraphs and link to credible and non-competing sources. Include relevant keywords at important points.
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