4 quick website improvement ideas
If you’re looking for a few simple ideas to help you improve customer experience when people visit your website, try these on for size.
1. Add a sitemap to your website.
It doesn’t really matter how many pages your website has. Unless your navigation structure is perfect, someone is going to get lost when exploring your site. And when they do, a sitemap is a great way to help them find what they’re looking for.
There are basically 2 types of sitemap you should have on your website. Firstly, an XHTML sitemap (the type people can use to navigate your website) is really nothing more than a list of links, in some sort of logical order a person can use to find a page on your website. As an example, you can take a look at my sitemap.
The second type of sitemap is written in XML. If you’ve ever stumbled onto an XML sitemap, you’ll know that they usually look like a load of nonsense. Thanks to a great WordPress plugin, mine doesn’t look that bad, but I’d still prefer to look at the styled XHTML version. Of course, my XML sitemap wasn’t built for me to look at; it was built for search engines.
Search engines understand XML sitemaps perfectly. And just like real people, sometimes search engine spiders need a little help finding their way around your website.
So by adding both an XHTML and an XML sitemap to your site you’ll be keeping people and search engines happy.
2. Re-write your ‘About Us’ page with your customers in mind.
As I’ve mentioned before, nobody cares about your mission statement. But they do care about (a) what your company does that makes you better than your competition, and (b) exactly who they’re going to be dealing with. If you’re looking for a great article to help you write a new About Us page, I can highly recommend this post from Skelliewag.org.
3. Build relevant metatags.
Page title, Description and Keyword metatags are probably the fundamental root of any web page.
- The page title tells search engines in a nutshell what the page is about.
- The Description is the bit of text that appears under your search engine listing.
- Essentially, it entices a prospective visitor to click through to your page to find out more.
- And keywords, while generally ignored by search engines, are a great way to make you remember what you’re actually writing about without getting off-topic.
4. Add a form to your ‘Contact Us’ page.
Apart from the fact that they make a website look more professional, contact forms can also help you get the correct information from respondents.
You can craft your form in such a way as to get certain information from people; information that will help you deal with their enquiry faster and more effectively.
If you aren’t a programmer, you’ll either need to hire someone (hint hint) to build a contact form for your site, or use one of the many subscription based contact form solutions available (you can try Wufoo and Icebrrg for starters).
Of course, the best part about having a contact form is that you won’t have to worry about getting as much spam in your mailbox any more. As you might have guessed, when you display your email address on your website you’re asking for a 1000 emails a month selling Viagra or cheap watches. Thanks to their structure, web forms hide your email address from spambots.
So to make your life easier, remove your email address from your website and put a contact form in place. Of course, if you actually are in the market for a fake Rolex, doing this may work against you…
Why do it?
Working any or all of these 4 elements into your website will make it a better place for people to visit. And a better customer experience can only improve your bottom line.
If you’re not comfortable making these changes to your website yourself, I’m available, and I’m affordable. Just ask.
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