The first two blogs in this series have mostly concentrated on how to improve SEO – Search Engine Optimization, which is really about improving your attractiveness to search engine algorithms. This final blog is about improving your web-appeal to humans, which in turn makes your website “sticky,” which in turn improves your web’s SEO.
What is the user experience when they visit your site? Is it a slow download? Can the user easily find what interests them? Do they poke around other links on your site or do they bounce off as quick as they arrive?
There are a few simple things you – even as a novice – can do to improve the visitor experience and ensure they stick and click around.
1) Make your website easy to navigate. Contact info should be on each page as well as have its own tab. If you have a physical business location, include the address and a google map. Do not forget to include your town and state as people may be searching from another state or even country. Your website is global, not local.
Also, keep it simple. Remove pop-ups or any apps that slow page downloads.
2) Use images! Create info graphics (easy to do on CANVA). Visuals help keep your reader’s attention. When uses images be sure to credit the photographer/artist. While there are a lot of free sources for images, it always pays to link-back to the source.
3) Create content that answers your reader’s questions. What are their questions? Whether you are a service or selling a product, consider what problem you are solving and what you can offer visitors. Are you a toy shop? The problem you can solve can be birthday gifts, educational tools, or family activities. Have content that answers each of these. What do you sell or offer that people might be searching for? A contemporary hair stylist? Catering needs? Legal advice? Auto insurance? As an artist, consider what you are selling. Original art only or have you created other products using your images that can solve gift-buying, home décor, or practical solutions for your web visitors? Do you take on commissioned work? Offer art classes? Or attend various art shows and if so, where/when?
4) Long-form content helps create “stickiness” and can be used to convert a casual drop-in to become a regular subscriber of your electronic newsletter or social media content. What is long-form content? Consider blogs of 1000+ words, e-books that solves a particular problem, guides or tutorials – written or webinars. Not all your content needs to be long-form. In fact, there should also be a lot of more bite-size bits of information on your website, but long-form can be used to convert a visitor to a subscriber. For example, a gallery might offer a free e-book about hanging art in exchange for the viewer to provide their email.
Once again, a hat-tip to Leanne Wong for her easy-to-follow SEO guide.
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Links:
Mudge Media SEO Made Simple – part I
Mudge Media Technical SEO
Wong, Leanne (2020). SEO Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide to Rank on Google. https://www.leannewong.co/seo-made-simple/
Image Credits
Four Sticky Notes Image Credit: ID 18514709 © Bjorn Hovdal | Dreamstime.com
Sticky Notes Image Credit: Illustration 107845012 © Imanpatterndesigner17 | Dreamstime.com