If websites were living things, they’d probably follow the rule of the jungle: the strongest devour the weakest. There are so many websites out there, their administrators and owners are always on the prowl for ways to make them rank higher than that of the competition. It is a constant cycle of configuration and performance evaluation before starting all over again with a new trick being applied on the website.
Without the on-going work websites would slowly sink to the bottom of the internet and – well, do whatever it is they do when they reach it. What is known is that your site will not be seen by your clients and customers, you won’t get the exposure and business you should and seeing your competitors doing much better than you, would probably lead you down the same path as that of the aforesaid sites.
And so, to avoid that fate, let us look at 5 ways you can enhance your website right now:
- Be The Visitor
You’ve created your website for your visitors, right? Well, put yourself in their shoes (or seat) and visit your site. Ask yourself what it is you don’t like about it? Be a harsh – and honest – critic. Whatever makes you not enjoy the experience or is too bothersome to navigate also has the same effect on all your visitors – remove, change, replace or recreate whatever you can.
- Use Google to Beat Google
Google owns the search engine game – we’ve got to admit it. No website can earn its stripes without being Google’s best friend. But what is even more amazing is that Google itself can help you become such a friend.
There are a set of tools and sites that offer free services to improve your site’s ranking. With Google Webmasters you can work on your site’s ranking, HTML performance, search and query performance and anything you could possibly think of to push it up the search engine results pages. What’s more, it’s all pretty straight forward and if you do it right you can see improvements in a matter of weeks.
Google Analytics helps you keep track of your traffic – the “Who?”, “Why?”, “Where?” and “What?” of your visitor’s attributes are answered on this site (you will of course need to add a line or two of code to make it work, but it is totally worth it.)
Google AdWords has a free feature that you can use to research keywords – the Keywords Planner. With a little work you can find great keywords that you can then use to push your site ranking upwards.
If you are a business, Google let’s you put your location and detailed information on a map… for free. Just check out Google My Business.
- Use Editing Tricks on your Text
Most of your site will contain content you want your visitors to go through. Apart from being grammatically and syntactically correct, your content should be attractive to your readers. Just line after line of words will put your visitors off.
Try to create art with your text:
- Use bullet points and text formatting (bold, italics, etc.) – it looks nice and important.
- Graphics also look nice and can draw attention – but don’t overdo it, because you don’t want to waste too much space for something that doesn’t help a lot with your rankings – unless you label and/or caption them with keywords.
- Use multiple columns, if you can pull it off make them of uneven width with the widest one holding the more important content.
- Use short, precise and to the point sentences. They are easier to understand, look neat and you can squeeze much more ideas into your page.
- Finally, engage your visitors. Make them want to interact with you (or your site). Invite them to click on your links, visit other pages on your site, make comments or join your forum – keep them there for as long as you can.
- Sell, Sell, Sell
If your website was created to sell your stuff, then that is exactly what it should do. Don’t be shy about it. Put attention grabbing buttons that read “Buy Now”, or banners that read “On Sale Now”, “Reduced Price – If You Purchase Now”… you get the idea, right? Engage as much of your visitors’ sight with as many ways as you can: bright colored ads and messages, flashing and blinking ads, color contrasts that stand out.
Don’t let your visitors’ thoughts wander too far away from what you are trying to do: pitch a sale, reel them in and make them happy to part with their money.
- Spy on and Borrow your Competition’s Strategy
If you can’t beat them imitate and, if possible, improve on your competitors’ ideas. Yes, it is unfair and as close as you can get to stealing, but if your website is going to survive that jungle, it will have to mimic other jungle-dwellers, just like a cuckoo “borrowing” other birds’ nests. Needless to say, avoid copyrighted work!
And we’re done. But, keep in mind that your quest for improvement shouldn’t stop here. There are new techniques that come out almost every day, so keep apace.
