How to Make a Website Successful

[ChosenOne]

When doing business on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can make a website successful. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites don't make sales. There is much more to creating a quality website. To make a website successful, you must create a website that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase.

Selecting a Website's Niche

The first step toward how to make a website successful, will be to target your website for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about wine, everything within your website should relate to wine.

Selecting a Website's Keyword Phrase

You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your webpage. For example, if your webpage is about 'making wine,' your best keyword phrase would be 'wine making.' You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage, as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is a very important step to make a website successful.

Using HTML Heading Tags

When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use the HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text displayed with heading tags.

As the default text for the H1 heading tag is very large, you may want to use CSS style sheets to display the heading tags in the font style and size you prefer.

Using META Tags Within a Webpage

Another step to help make a website successful is to include META tags between the HEAD tags of your webpage. META tags help the search engines to know what keywords are relevant to the webpage. They are also used to tell the search engines what the webpage is about. Many search engines will display this description within the search results.

Backgrounds and Text

It is always best to display a webpage with a white background and black text, as this will make the text easy to read. Distracting backgrounds will make the text hard to read. A good rule of thumb is to just use common sense and keep your website simple. This alone is a great way to help make a website successful.

Animated Graphics

If you're using animated graphics, it is important that you use them sparingly. Graphics that continually flash are VERY annoying and may prevent your visitors from returning to your website in the future.

Navigational Links

It is very important to include good navigational links on every page. They should be displayed at the top, bottom, left or right side of your webpage. In addition, your visitors should be able to get to any webpage within your website within four clicks.

Webpage Layout

Always be consistent with your webpage design. This is a very important step to help make a website successful. The layout for your website should be the same on each page. If you make it different, your visitors will become confused. In addition, it will make your website appear to be unprofessional. Your website design should include the same layout, logo, and navigation setup on each page.

Spelling and Grammar

Always make sure you proof read and spell check your webpages for errors. It is also very important that your webpage doesn't have any broken images or links.

Important Webpages

When you launch your website, it is very important that you include the following webpages:

About - The 'About' page is used to tell your visitors about you and/or your company.

Privacy - The 'Privacy' page is used to let your visitors know what you do with their personal information, such as their email address.

Terms and Conditions - The 'Terms and Conditions' page should be displayed on your website for your protection.

Site Map - A 'Site Map' is used to help the search engines index your website more easily.

You can learn more about all of these pages by doing a search through your favorite search engine. They are very important and will help make a website successful.

Website Interactivity

Another way to make a website successful is to make the website interactive. This can be done by including a targeted forum that complements your website, a form in which they can subscribe to an ezine, a feedback form to enable them to give their opinion, or an informative blog in which visitors can comment.

Web Browsers and Screen Resolutions

When you begin designing your webpage, it is HIGHLY recommended that you install the most popular web browsers on your computer. This will enable you to see how your website will display in different browsers. You will find that your website may look great in one browser and terrible in another. It would be wise to design your website to display properly in Firefox and then it should display properly in Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.

It is also important that you view your website through different screen resolutions. You can either open your webpage in your browser and then change your computer's screen resolution, or there are website's online that you can visit, such as Any Browser, to test your website.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you can begin to make a website successful in no time.





// Got this in my inbox, so I share it.

ChosenOne Reviewed by ChosenOne on 23rd Oct 2009. How to Make a Website Successful When doing business on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can make a website successful. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites don't make sales. There is much more to creating a quality website. To make a website successful, you must create a website that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining Rating: 5

[BlaZe]

I'll publish it on my Site

Don't worry I'll keep the credits

[Mr Happy]

Nice tut. I'm going to add a few extra bit's of info for some sections that I feel are important. You can include this or copy and paste it to wherever if you want.

Selecting a Website's Keyword Phrase
Don't use obvious ones. If it's a wine making site don't use the keyword 'wine making'. Instead use ones which are easier to get a higer serch result in like 'wine making process' or 'wine making instructions'. Find which keywords are best to use for your site using a tool like Google's Keyword tool

Using HTML Heading Tags
Don't use more than 5 of any tag on a page or Google will pick it up as spamming keywords.

Using META Tags Within a Webpage
The keyword meta tag isn't important really but the Description is. Have a good keyword filled description but don't go over 250 characters. A description that's too long is considered spamming keywords.

Page Title
You totally forgot to mention this. These are very important. They are in the header and inside the <title> tags. Keep it relevant and keyword filled. You don't need to bother with the name of your site. That's obvious and not needed. The first words are the most important and reduce in importants as the title goes on. Don't use more than 10 words or you'll be peanilised by google.

Animated Graphics
Make sure you add alt tags to all graphics and flash. Google and other search engines as well as people with reading difficulties use these. It's also a great way to add more relevant keywords. Another trick is to name images properly. Insead of image01.jpg or logo.jpg rename it to wine-making-logo.jpg Remember Keywords, Keywords, Keywords.

Privacy
Add a bit of a copyright info to this as wellto protect your site.


Their's more but that with above will give your site a great start.

[kholu]

nice tips
Really helpful

[CyberPirate]

Not bad, so where did you C&P this from?:zaru

[elmazagangi]

Thanks for the tips
Some are new for me..