5 Tips for Struggling Websites

Often the specific content management system package that your website is using makes a dramatic

difference.

The ease of use, the features and scalability all make a difference.

Yet even with the most basic of CMS packages, there are processes you can put in place that will make a dramatic difference, regardless of whether you are using Joomla!,

Magento, WordPress or another popular self-hosted CMS package.

If you require website design or development services, please get in touch.

The next five tips are aimed at people with struggling websites.

Admittedly this article could have covered more than five tips, but then why not subscribe to our blog to read more great tips?

Also if you need help, then please get in touch with Neogain – we can make a dramatic difference to your website performance.

Tip 1 – Review your statistics and assign tasks.

Within your website statistics there hopefully are some keywords, that people regularly use to find your website from search engines. Check out what these keywords are, what pages they are landed on, and list the keywords based on length of time on your website.

Now put these top keywords into Google’s keyword tool and list down five of the popular local searches, followed by a selection of related lower searches that there isn’t much competition for.

Note: You obviously want to attract traffic related to your objectives, and not traffic for the sake of traffic.

Next using a plugin and / or service such as ‘SEO Quake’, research the keywords to assess the competition.

There are some techniques to using SEO Quake, that we will cover here on the blog soon, but hopefully you can identify some placements based on keywords, that you can target. i.e.

For some keywords you could possibly get in the top five of Google.

Now create a text document listing in priority the keywords you would like to target.

Now based on those keywords and reviewing the top web pages people landed on, you can hopefully recreate some of that magic.

This shouldn’t be the only keyword strategy you use, but hopefully will help attract visitors to your new content.

Tip 2 – Useful content as well as great keyword usage.

People often write content to target keywords, but provide content of little value. Whereas writing great content, that includes researched keywords, hopefully will provide more relevance to your visitors. Plus let’s not forget about photos and video.

Often a digital camera can capture short video footage, as well as be used to take digital photos. So don’t be scared to capture video footage, as well as take photos to include in your website – enriching your content and providing useful SEO benefits.

Tip 3 – Review your website development and design objectives.

Your website statistics again should be able to help you identify areas of issue. Achieving objectives isn’t just about good web copy.

Perhaps your website is a pain for visitors on small devices to use?

Maybe your shopping cart scares people off?

Maybe the menus are wrongly placed or badly presented?

Look at who your core visitor demographics are and at what stage they leave your website.

Only the tip of the ice-berg, but proper development and design isn’t guess work, and visitor habits can often be surprising, or when assessed actually understandable given what they are presented with.

Tip 4 – Look at notifications and prioritise.

From the shopping cart notifications, to blog comments and contact form email, are the right being being notified quickly or even at all?

It isn’t hard to setup email to route to multiple people, and clearly making communication a priority when appropriate can help you achieve your objectives.

Though remember to clearly outline what your communication strategy is.

If you keep receiving emails regarding the same issue, perhaps an on-site FAQ will help reduce the quantity or even an auto-responder email listing details, as a stop gap until someone responds in person.

If you don’t care about blog comments, then perhaps you shouldn’t have them turned on.

Tip 5 – Don’t neglect your website.

Whether you are outsourcing help, working on the website yourself or as part of a team, you should make sure your website isn’t neglected.

Often poor website statistics can mean a change in direction is required, but often just sticking to a set plan should be the aim.

It is incredible easy to lose focus, whatever decisions you make, you should make sure they are well thought-out.

Website design and development should always be tested, but even if you received detailed testing, there is nothing quite like a live environment to discover issues, that need addressing.

So don’t forgo testing, but remember you will probably need to make changes along the way.

Conclusion

Whatever you do, make sure your website receives the attention it desires.

If you require a website team, please get in touch with Neogain.

For your website design and development support, please get in touch.