Do you think you have a great website?  What makes a website great?  Well, lots of things make a great website, but some thing’s don’t.  Here are five myths about what makes a great website and what you really need instead.

A Great Website Has Lots of Great Graphics

Wrong.  A great website is about the message, about speaking directly to your ideal customer, and explaining the value of the service you provide and why it is different or better than the competition.  Lots of flashy graphics doesn’t help do that – in fact, it can hinder, as you’ll either confuse or lose the customer’s attention all together.  How many great television advertisements can you think of where you remember everything about the commercial except the brand that it was advertising?

What You Really Need: Do your graphics look professional and appropriate for your brand?  If not, start there.  If yes, then answer the question: are the graphics helping to close the deal, or are they just fluff distracting from the message?  It’s a delicate balance.

A Great Website Has a Great Domain Name

Wrong.  Few customers will actually go and type in your domain name to find you.  Do you go and just type “walkingtoursindublin.com” to see what you find, or do you use Google/Yahoo to search?  The only times someone will use the domain is if they have your business card, or if they’re being recommended to your site via word of mouth.

What You Really Need: Your domain only needs to:

• Be Easy to Spell
• Be Easy to Remember
• Reflect what you actually are or what you do

A nice to have is including some of your keywords in the title, but this is a nice to have, not a must have.  You should always own the “.com” before you buy other regional specific domains.

Notice I didn’t say short.  Do NOT compromise on spelling or ease of remembering for a shorter domain name.

A Great Website Has Great Content Written for Everybody

Wrong.  You absolutely must write website content that speaks to your customers one-on-one.  As if they’re sitting right there next to you.  Don’t write for everybody – as everybody isn’t interested.

What You Really Need: Go through each page of your website and ask yourself the question:  is this written for my ideal customer?  If not, what needs changed?

A Great Website Gives Customers Lots of Options

Wrong.  When you give people lots and lots of options, they choose nothing.  (Or choose the back button.  Which is worse?)   One, at most two options, is plenty.  Don’t overwhelm them with choice.  If you have a big portfolio of products and have a hard time with this, think about a clothing store; the first question they ask you on their website is an easy one — men or women?  This doesn’t mean you can’t see the rest of the menu, and it doesn’t mean you hide the search away, it just means you give them focus and easy baby steps to move through the process.

What You Really Need: Go through each page of your website and check that you’re giving customers just one or two next steps.

A Great Website is Optimised for Search Engines as Fully as Possible

Wrong.  It is possible to over-optimise, which is often called “keyword stuffing.”  Repeating your keywords over and over in the text does not help, and in fact it can cause a search engine spider to flat your page up as spam, so don’t do it.  Using your keywords a couple of times (particularly at the beginning of the piece) is all you need.

What You Really Need: Write naturally, then when you’ve finished, go back and see where keywords can fit in without changing the meaning or readability.  The search engines will do the rest.

To Learn More…

How great is your website?  Get some external perspective, ideas, and vision injected into your online presence with our online audit package – you can choose to have an overall audit or only focus in on the areas most important to you.  A great website translates directly into more online sales and more profits, so let us help your efforts to improve website content today.

Prefer a do-it-yourself approach?  Tweak your website content for maximum impact with our Write Right Online DIY guide.  With these tips, you’ll get better conversions, which means more profits.  It is one of our highest selling guides, so check it out!

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