When you need to promote your business online, one of your best assets is going to be your website. If you sell products in an e-commerce shop, your website is where people will purchase your products. If your plan is to promote the services that your business offers, your website is going to be the place that people go to find out more about those services. Your website should be treated like the online face of your business, because that’s exactly what it is. In order for your website to be effective at promoting your business though, it needs to be set up properly. Problems can arise when a business has a website built without taking SEO (search engine optimization into consideration and it’s always more difficult to change things after the fact than it is before your website is even built. If you want to promote your business online, here are 5 considerations to take into account before your website is built:
1. Your Website’s Design
If you’re without an online presence, it’s common to want to get online as quickly as possible. With that said, putting up a website that’s lacking in design just for the sake of getting one up quickly can do more harm than good. Since your website is the online face of your business, it needs to look professional and taken care of. If it looks incomplete, outdated or poorly designed, it’s going to directly reflect on your business’s professionalism. A little attention to detail can make a whole world of difference when it comes to promoting your business online and on your website.
2. Your Website’s Domain Name
Your domain name should relate to your business in one way or another. If you can’t get your business name as your domain name, then at least make sure that the domain name relates to your niche. Too often, business owners find that they pick a name for their domain that sounds catchy, only to realize that it doesn’t make sense when combined with what their business is about. When it comes to online promotion, it’s all about branding. If your domain name relates to your business, it’ll help brand your business online.
3. Your Website’s Content
Touching again on how important it is to have a complete website when you make it go “live,” content needs to be present and plentiful. What escapes a lot of people is that they can write content for their website before it goes live so that when the search engines start indexing it, the content is already present. If you wait to start writing content until your website is live, it’s going to look empty and the search engines aren’t going to have much to index.
4. The Title Tag
The title tag of your website is the most important tag. It tells the search engines and users what your website is about and it’s not something that should change. When taking the title tag into consideration before your website is built, think about keywords, what your business is about and how users might search for your products or services. This will help you write a more effective title tag for SEO.
5. Accessibility
The navigation on your website is how visitors access your website’s different areas. When making considerations for your new website, it’s helpful to have a simple navigation that’s easy to follow and that’s also highly visible. Along with the navigation, it’s also important to include alt text tags on your images so that users who use screen reading programs are able to determine what your website’s pictures are about.
There are dozens of things to take into consideration before your website is built, but the 5 listed above will help with usability and search engine optimisation. If you can make the search engines and your website visitors happy, promoting your business online through your website will be less of a challenge.
