Five Tips to Make Your Site Superb

There's a few easy ways to keep people coming back to your site - find out how to make your home on the web more popular!

In A Working Writer's Website: Publish, Promote and Profit? http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art454.asp

I discussed the fundamentals of developing your own site.

If you've read that feature and utilized those basic suggestions, I believe the following ideas may help you maximize the effectiveness of your site.

1 - Create A Catchy Name For Your Site

Do titles like - Welcome to My Website or Home of Professional Writer Lisa Smith - really tell viewers anything about you or what your site has to offer?

You want to develop a tag line that describes you and your website. Your title should be creative and make an impression on your visitors.

If you want them to remember you, you need to choose a name that will grab their attention.

Think about the titles of websites you have committed to memory - What makes them special?

2 - Keep Your Content Current

Update your site regularly.

You have a lot of competition online. Web users can probably find information similar to what you may offer on countless other sites.

If visitors to your site encounter outdated news or dead links, they may delete your URL from their list of Favorites.

If you provide new content on a continual basis, you give them one good reason to come back to your site frequently.

Your home page is usually the first thing your visitors see. Make sure you change it by adding new links or articles regularly.

3 - Create Valuable Content

The value of your content is just as important as its' newness.

Are you giving your visitors any important, significant, indispensable information on your site?

Or are you offerring the same news, topics, links etc... that they can find on numerous other web pages?

Be original.

Don't oversell yourself (ie. take up a page or more talking about how great your latest e-book or related product is...)

Make it personal.

Provide straight-forward articles/advice written by you based on your own experiences or the documented experiences of other respected writers.

Get directly to the point! It's easy to achieve this goal just by providing comprehensive but concise content.

Do not make your visitors read all about you before they can get to where they want to go.

Creating a site index can help people find what they're looking for quickly.

The key to an effective index is accurate titles - with descriptions that offer just enough detail.

For example - the title "Contact Information" is pretty self-explanatory.

However, you may want to let your visitors know that if they click on that heading they will either

1) be taken to a different page on your site that lists various email, snail mail addresses, phone numbers etc.
or
2) be automatically creating a blank email message directed to your email address.

Listing links to websites featuring related information is not a bad idea (provided you're not repeatedly referring your visitors to someone else's website, which may or may not be more worthwhile than your own.)

Consider exchanging links with other webmasters/website owners to provide both of you with the necessary publicity you need for your website without jeopardizing its effectiveness.

4 - Offer Some Uniformity

Although change is definitely good when it comes to creating a winning website, a standard format and continuity is equally important.

Use a basic font (like Arial or Times) that every visitor can easily view.

While there is something to be said for using a large font size to emphasize a word or phrase, too many text changes can appear sloppy and be difficult to read.

Most of your content should be the same size (preferably 10 to 12 points).

Avoid using backgrounds that clash with your own color, font or file types. (One simple example of this type of error is - gray colored text on a page with a dark-colored background.

Think about it like this:

Writers are always told NOT to send out a sloppy query letter, article, manuscript, resume etc... Thus do NOT create an unprofessional, shoddy web site. Your visitors will not only be displeased, they will probably exit your pages immediately and NEVER return to give you a second chance.

5 - Use Graphics and Audio or Video Clips Sparingly

How many times have you clicked on a webpage and gotten frustrated as you wait and wait for it to completely load?

Too many graphics will slow down your pages faster than anything. And deter potential visitors from hanging around to view your site just as quickly!

Just because you have access to high bandwith connections, doesn't mean the majority of your visitors do. Viewing your site filled with audio and/or video files (an impressive - to you - shockwave intro) will be a frustrating disappointment for your readers, who lack the programs/computer capablities to see/hear (much less appreciate) the content of these types of files.

Excluding these files will reduce your viewer's download time significantly.

Or include audio/video files and offer them as an option for your visitors to select.

Most web users want speed and simplicity.

Make it easy for them to access your pages and view your site.

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