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Coming to a browser near you...... ICANN is releasing new top level domain names. This is the most important development in the domain name industry in years. As eraly as this month (June 2013), over 2,000 new suffixes, released in blocks of 20 or so, will be available to the general public. Lots of webmasters have slammed ICANN over the release of this many new domain extensions, comparing it to a shakedown of epic proportions. If you are a savvy entrepreneur, you will be preparing if you want to protect your brand. You can find more information on ICANN's website at http://newgtlds.icann.org/en. Watch the video below for more info.
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Your website is more than likely the first thing a potential customer sees when making their decision to dine at your restaurant.
So it is more important than ever that your website is optimized for converting website visitors into customers. The key is to make sure you know what those customers are looking for, and give it to them.
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One of the main causes of people abandoning websites is poor navigation. They can't find where they want to go, so they leave, maybe never to come back. Even worse, they assume your service is as bad as your navigation and will end up on your competitor's site to find what they are looking for. With some changes to your navigation design, you can create an experience that helps visitors find what they want as quickly as possibly, preferably with one click.
Some important things to consider for site navigation are:
- Let visitors navigate your site from any page - Visitors often get stuck in a site after a couple of clicks and don't know how to get back to where they came from. A top placed navigation will allow visitors to navigate to other pages without having to go back to your home page to start over. Make sure to include the navigation bar on all pages.
- Display breadcrumbs - As visitors browse your site, they often need to know how they got to the page they are on or how to get back to an earlier page. By displaying breadcrumbs, visitors know where they came from (Ex. Home > About > Staff > Programmers)
- Consider adding images in the navigation to indicate navigational categories, such as product types, brands, etc.
When developing your site navigation, thing like your customer. After the site is built, navigate through it to make sure it is easy to get to the information that is most important on your site. When you do this, you will be pleased with the results.
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Does your website have a good ranking with Google? Is your website easy to navigate and user friendly? Do you have keywords in your website text? If you don't know, you should.
Competition is fierce today for site ranking and placement both in organic search and pay per click marketing. You need to make sure your website content is optimized for search to ensure you are being ranked and found for the keyword(s) you think are important to your company. Reviewing this before starting any online marketing is imperative. You can have a Competition Research Report done which will tell you how your competition is marketing online and where are their visitors coming from.
As more and more people are using their smartphones for Internet browsing, you must ensure that your site is capable of being viewed on that small mobile screen. You can either optimize your existing site for mobile or create a separate mobile site that is scaled back to load and view properly in a mobile browser. You don't want to miss a potential client because they either can't pull up your website on their phone or they can't get to the information they need quickly if they do.
Another important thing is to make sure your site is up to date and optimized for the keywords you want to rank for before starting any social media campaigns. You will get one chance to capture them when you direct them there, so you must make sure your content conveys the message you want to send in order to get the potential client to email you or call you for more information or to make an online purchase.
If you are not sure where you stand with your site, you can have a 21 Point Website Review done which will look at multiple areas of your site including performance, mobile capability, online listings, and more. This will help you optimize your current site or let you know that you need to build a new site that is more optimized for search and best represents your products or services to your customers.
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by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media
The last piece to consider when writing a business blog is to use citations. Blogging is quickly being accepted as legitimate journalism so it needs to be treated that way. This means proper citation of facts, figures, sources and related stories. This will reinforce the legitimacy of your business blog.
When trying to get ranked by search engines, speed is a factor. So, while being the first to publish a post might result in a surge of clicks, what is most important is quality. Google's latest update stresses the importance of quality content. Taking a few extra minutes to ensure accuracy will have more important long-term effects.
In writing business blogs, remember that the target audience is looking for facts, informatio and actionable advice. Provide the audience reasons to trust your blog and they will come back, link to your posts, share the content and help establish your business as an industry leader. |
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