Home » Hot Tips » Creating Websites That Work

Your website should be dynamic and changeable, constantly adapting to attract new visitors and to encourage people to engage with what you are offering. In other words, it should be working for you and promoting your business or service. Here are some suggestions for achieving this.

1. Create a logical structure and layout: Designers might not like logic but web users expect things to be laid out in a logical way - and that's who the website is for. Place the logo at the top, the navigation on the left or top and the main content in the centre. Use a hierarchy of headings and sub-headings, making use of the heading tags (h1, h2, h3). Your users will thank you for this and the search engines will like it too. Check each page of your site is validated to international standards at http://validator.w3.org/ and put the W3C buttons on the page to prove it.
2. Make a splash: Logical doesn't have to mean boring and you should design your site to make an impact. A good logo works wonders as do well chosen photos. Don't be afraid of white space - a clean design looks better and is much easier to use than a site with lots of columns and boxes with tiny text.
3. Provide clear and easy navigation: Design a menu that looks the same on each page and which has a link to every section of the website. Use a logical hierarchy to make it easy to go from general content to more specific content. Do this either with drop-down or flyout menus with different levels, or or use intermediate "home" pages for each section. Use breadcrumbs to allow your visitors to quickly navigate back to previous pages or the Home page - you can see an example just below the menu bar on each page of this site.
4. Write good quality content: Well written and interesting content is a must - it will encourage users to come back and they will direct other users to it through blogs and forums. You need to include the keywords you need to improve your seo, but the skill is to do this without making it sound contrived. A good web designer can help with this, but think about hiring a copywriter - the extra cost will pay dividends. At the very least read it out loud yourself and have a friend read it.
5. Optimise for search engines: Well thought-out seo will help you get far better search engine rankings than your competitors. Start with researching your keywords and include them in well written content. Getting links back to your site is also crucial and you need to spend some time on this to get it right.
6. Use social media: You can no longer just rely on search engine optimisation to improve your online marketing. You also need to make good use of social networking sites to promote your message. Which ones to use depends a lot on you and your business but the most important at the moment for different reasons probably include Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Digg.
7. Create added value pages: Your well designed website may look great but it won't pull in the punters if you're just telling them the basics about your business. Use your specialist knowledge to add pages of practical advice or original research that will encourage people people to visit your site. For example you could provide tips on tennis technique, how to buy a computer or how to design a garden; or you could write reviews and news of the local music or sports scene. If you can, provide the opportunity for people to comment.
8. Keep it fresh and up-to-date: Once your website is finished don't just leave it to gather dust. Keep adding new content, updating your existing pages and refreshing your images. This will keep your users coming back and will also keep the search engines interested - they love sites that are frequently updated.
9. Use images to add interest: The old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is certainly true of the web and a good photo can lure passing visitors to your content. But choose your images carefully and try to make them relevant, interesting and attractive. If you have the skill take the photos yourself but if not, excellent web quality images are available at low-cost on stock photo sites. Give them descriptive alt tags and they will add useful keywords for search engines.
10. Use Flash sparingly: Firstly Flash animations designed to brighten up a site can quickly become annoying. Secondly, Flash pages aren't indexed properly by search engines so any content in them won't show up in searches. And finally, Apple devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and the new iPad don't support Flash. 20 million people use iPhones and iPods to browse the web - can you afford to ignore them? Flash is great for practical demonstrations such as showing how things work, but don’t use it right across your site?