Before embarking on creating a website, first and most importantly, think who will be your customer.
We often assume that our customers are vastly knowledgeable about our products. The problem there is we are “assuming.” You have to consider that your customer may know zilch about your product or service.
Determine what you are trying to communicate:
- What’s the most important aspect of your business or organization that needs to pop out?
- If you have multiple products/services, don’t throw it all on the page. Too many choices loses people.
- Lose the jargon and the industry speak so the average reader will understand. Keep it simple!
When developing pages, forget the innovative and quirky names. For instance, here are common categories:
- Services, Products
- About Us, Contact Us
- Search, Advanced Search
- Help, Support, (even Contact Us)
- Pricing, Request a Quote, Wishlist
- News, announcements, social media, press releases
Use keywords instead of jargon:
- Think of keywords that customers would put in a search window to find your business
- Turn links into keywords since Web browsers can “search” those, such as http://www.MyHomePage.com/HowToBuildAnEffectiveWebsite.com
- Ask friends/family who are NOT familiar with your business, what keywords would they enter to look you up – this gives you an idea on how people are thinking.
For instance, if your business is creating websites, maybe your homepage needs to say “Creating Affordable Websites to Meet Your Customer Needs.” From there, you can build other pages that showcase some of your work, customer testimonials, pricing and how to contact you.
MMY Content Creator 