Top 10 Things to Improve Your Web Site in 2007

Top 10 Things to Improve Your Web Site in 2007
by James Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com



As 2007 begins, there are some simple things you can do to clean up your web site and help to market your business. As you would with your house or car, it is important to apply regular maintenance to your web site to keep it running in tip-top shape. The following ten tips will help you to upkeep your web site in the New Year.

1. Make sure that all of your links/images are working properly.
While this should seem simple enough, so many web sites do not have all of their internal and external links working properly. While you have no control over external links, it is good to occasionally go back and check upon them, since another company could switch their own web site around and no longer have a valid URL. Within your own site, there is no excuse to have an invalid link. You can either check this manually or run a free program found online to make sure everything is connected properly.

2. Run a spell check over your entire web site.
This is another easy fix when changing text on your web site. Always write what you want to put on your site using a Microsoft Word or other word processing program. This way, you can assure words are spelled correctly before you cut and paste the information into your web site. With the rest of your site, you can do the reverse and copy the information from your web site and paste it into your word processing program to ensure spelling.

3. Add ALT attributes to all of your pictures.
Search engines look for ALT attributes on your pictures. What is an ALT attribute? The ALT attribute is an alternative image tag for non-visual browsers when they come across images. This means that the text – or ALT attribute – will be seen when the image is not visible on the page.

Many browsers will also display the ALT attribute if you hover your mouse over the image. If you embed a link in the image, it is good to write out the link as your ALT attribute. Be brief in the text you write for your ALT attribute. You don’t want the viewer reading a paragraph of text on your web page when they hover over a picture.

4. Add keyword meta tags to each of your major pages.
Keyword and key phrases are essential to your web page. They let the web spiders know what the most important words on your page are and how to find you when searching on the internet. You should think about the words that would best describe the elements of the page you are on when coming up with keywords.

Also, be specific when coming up with your key words and phrases. If you are a bookstore, using the key word “book” is not going to help you very much. “Book” can reference many things in addition to reading materials. It could mean “scheduling a flight or music act”, “an accountant’s spreadsheets”, or “slang for moving very fast”. All of these things would come up if someone typed the word “book” into a search engine. Specific content, such as the book title, or even “paperback book” are better keywords to use when coming up with your keywords on for the page.

5. Set a schedule to add your link to new places each week in 2007.
Your web site’s ranking is partially dependent upon incoming links. These can be obtained by adding your link to other people’s web sites, bulletin boards, message boards, or blogs. Be careful not to add too many links, though, because search engines do not want your link going out to web sites that do not relate to your own site, they view too many links at once as spamming and thus, you get penalized for this. So choose your incoming links wisely and get your name out. By setting your self to a schedule of 5 new links per week, you will have your name all over the web in no time.

6. Submit two articles per month.
Article submission works for you in two ways. First, it is a way of getting links back to your web site. You get this by placing your link to your own web site within the article. The article can be anything that you want to write about, but it should be something that people will want to pick up and use in their own blogs and on their own sites.

The second reason that submitting articles will do for you is by setting you up as an authority in whatever you are writing about. This adds credibility to you and your business and people will come to know you as a resource for their own questions. By placing a goal of twelve articles for a year, you will be considered an expert in your field.

7. Change your home page.
Unlike people, search engines love change. They want to see changes on your pages and when your home page changes they feel the need to do something about it. It is called “re-indexing” your site, which means they will re-examine your web site. You can change your site as often as once a week or once a month, but I would at least recommend at least two or three times a year. Just having the spiders re-indexing your site will make it worth the effort.

8. Add your web site address to all of your printed literature.
What many people forget to do is the hidden benefits of adding their web address to all of their printed literature. Business cards, flyers, invoices, and catalogs are all viable resources that should have your web site address printed on them so that people can find you on the web.

9. Add printed literature to all web orders.
If you are selling products on the web, be it through a traditional online store or through an auction site, such as eBay, you should prepare a flyer or letter with other items that you have for sale and a way to order them. Add this printed flyer in with each and every order. You can cross-sell items this way and you will find that your online sales increase with repeat customers. Remember, the customer that has already had a successful transaction with you is more likely to buy from you again.

Even if you do no accept credit cards or have a merchant account, you can do business online. PayPal is available to use and is a terrific way of doing commerce online. Look into adding this as an additional means of buying from you online, as well. PayPal is quickly becoming one of the largest online transaction companies.

10. Contact those who have shopped at your online store.
Once you have made some sales online (or have gathered clients through your web site), you should contact them from time to time to remind them that you are still open for business. As stated above, people that have shopped through you before and have walked away happy, are more likely to buy from you again and recommend you to others. Just drop them an email about once a month to let them know you see them as a valuable customer.

Please note that this is different than “spamming” since these people have already made purchases from you. A good business practice is to allow them the option to not receive any more messages from you. This is called, “opting out”.

Make these ten ideas part of your web strategy for the new year. You will find that they will help you in your web savvy and also increase your business.

If you find yourself wanting to implement some or all of these ideas, but do not know how to go about doing this, please do not hesitate to contact me and we can work towards getting a jump start on your web site in 2007!

Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year from all of us at www.mywebsource1.com !