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WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
GUIDE
If you
don't have a website for your business, you
should. In this
day and age, it is one of the most
important things for any business.
It doesn't have to be super fancy -- just an
online presence that has some basic
information about your business as well as
any links to other sites where your items
are actually being sold (Bonanza, Ebay, Etsy, Ruby
Lane, etc.).
There
are plenty of FREE sites out there just for
this purpose. I like
www.weebly.com
but any others that you may find would work.
I'm not saying that I
know everything there is to know about this
subject. Fact is, I know very little. Add to
that the fact that they change the "rules"
all the time, well, you can guess that all
this can be very frustrating.
That being
said, I have learned a couple of
things over the years that seem to
stay consistent, so here are some
suggestions that you can try to get
just a little bit more traffic to
your website.
Domain name should include
important key words but more than
anything else, should
be short enough for people to
remember.
Keywords are important. Keywords and
phrases embedded in your website should always start with
your domain name.
When setting up your site, be sure
that the majority of the
information is within the frame of
the browser when it first comes up. Maximum width should
be fixed at around 900 pixels so
that people don't have to scroll
horizontally to see the full picture. If the
information doesn't fit within the
frame, it is always easier to
scroll up and down rather than
side to side. Most tablets and
phones will resize to fit
horizontally. Use fonts that are
clear and easy to read. Keep in
mind that if you are using a fancy
font, not everyone will have that
particular font loaded on their
computer so it will show up
differently or not at all. Also,
view your site on different
browsers to see how it looks.
Edge, Google Chrome,
Mozilla Firefox, Opera and AOL are
most common.
Be sure your site flows and that your links all work. Make slight changes to your site
every week. This shows that it is
still active and up to date. This
is what "Crawlers" look for and if
you have a bunch of broken links or you
haven't made changes in a while, your
site may be regarded as obsolete and/or
inactive.
Site Maps and footers show that
the site is professional and
stable.
Put a counter on your site.
Vendio.com has a free service
to help you with that.
Link exchanges help both parties.
The more your website is listed on
other pages, the better. Google
crawlers look to see if you
have a links page as part of their
ranking process. If you don't have
much within your industry, link to
places of interest, other fun
activities, information or
reference guides or other
businesses,
organizations
or charities that interest you.
Facebook, Twitter and any of the
100’s of other social networking
sites are great advertising. Set
up a page on your Facebook
account. Once you have 25 likes,
you will be able to claim your
user name (domain name). You will then show up
better on Google and other searches.
YouTube channel, video
and Google Map (if brick & mortar) on the first page
of your site also
increases your chance to show up
on Google.
Set up an Ebay Selling account
and keep a couple of items
listed. Even if you don't sell
much, it helps to advertise your
business.
Always promote your website on
your business cards, receipts and any printed forms, flyers or
publication advertising you do.
Develop an email list and always
have your website listed on every
email that you send out. Even if
you don't necessarily sell
something on your site, the more
activity you have on your website
the better. The main goal is to
get traffic to your site so others
can find you by searching for you.
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