[lead]A couple tweaks to your website can make the difference between bland and beautiful, between a website which works and one that doesn’t. There are quite a few things you could do. Here are 11 website tips and tricks you can put into action right now.[/lead]
11 Killer tips and tricks for a better website – Issue no. 1
1
Write Fun (and Good) Content
People do business with people, so your blog shouldn’t be a regurgitation of corporate press releases. No one wants to comment on a blog post full of corporate blah-speak, so feel free to get a little (or a lot) more casual on your company blog.
2
Optimise your images for Pinterest
When you include a title with your image, that title populates the comment field on the pin. Without a title, Pinterest fills in the pin description with your image name, which may be something pretty random like DCMI677554453.
3
Product descriptions. Make sure you write your own.
If you own a webshop and you’re selling products that others are selling as well, here’s an invaluable tip: write your own content! No matter how awesome your website is, you just won’t rank for your product descriptions if there are 500 other webshops with an exact copy of it.
4
Make sure your website load as fast as possible
Research shows every second you shave off your site’s average page load time means an 8% improvement in page value.
5
Limit the amount of social sharing buttons
If you’re choosing to put social sharing buttons on your site, limit your readers’ choices. You don’t want them paralyzed with too many choices, so stick to the social media channels they use most often.
6
Capture attention with a headline
Your websites headline is important. Not just important but really important. In fact, nearly 80% of website visitors will read the headline. The number of people who read further depends on how attention-grabbing the headline is.
And this doesn’t just apply to the home page. Every page on your website should have a compelling headline to capture the visitors’ attention and lead them to a conversion.
7
Include social proof to show potential customers that others trust you.
For example, how many followers do you have on Twitter? How many fans do you have from Facebook. How many customers have signed up for your service/newsletter/promo/etc.
8
Create Great content (the longer, the better)
Great content is a requirement to rank well. Search engines rank pages with bad grammar and spelling lower. This means that sites with well-written content are finally starting to get the ranking they deserve.
9
Keywords In Domain Aren't Needed For Ranking Well
You don’t need your keywords in your domain name. Websites without them in there rank just fine. Instead of focusing on that specific keyword, spend the time to make your site the absolute best of its kind.
10
Check for broken links
Because when people click on a broken link, they definitely have a “WTF” moment that makes them question your site’s trustworthiness. I know you have a lot on your plate, but take the 45-seconds you need to make sure your site’s links are working. In fact, I stopped writing this article to check out my link situation…
11
Make Your Content Insanely Easy to Read
Content is king … if people actually read it. And massive blocks of text with zero subheadings make that a tall task for most casual readers.
- Make all paragraphs 1-3 sentences (sites like nytimes.com and socialtriggers.com do this exceptionally well)
- Include generous subheadings (at least one per 200 words) to break up your content
- Use 12 to
1416 point font (16 is the new 12) - Decrease your page margins so that people’s eyes don’t have to dart back and forth across their screen
You may think these are minor details, but they make a huge difference in how people interact with your site.