Web Tips
Every month our newsletter includes a helpful tip to use on your site. We've compiled the tips here for your convenience. If you find these tips to be helpful, subscribe to our newsletter and you'll receive a tip every month in your inbox!
Creating a Linking System
It is important to have a site that is easily navigated. Usually, this means having an effective menu. You want your visitors to be able to navigate to any part of the web page without having to search for what they're looking for, however, avoid the temptation to have 25 links in a menu. Instead, focus on having links to neighboring pages that relate to the page being viewed. For instance, if you have a page with a map or directions to your business, you may want to have a link to that page on an 'About us' or 'Contact us' page. The idea is that every time a visitor clicks on a link on your page, they should be getting closer to what they're looking for, if they do not find it.
Creating effective links also includes leaving a 'cookie crumb' trail; that is, a method to navigate backward. Every page should have a link to the 'Home' page usually, and any link that goes to a page should also go in reverse. This means if 'About Us' has a 'Contact Us' link, then 'Contact Us' should have an 'About Us' link. A visitor should always and easily be able to go backwards.
Consider making links in your content that leads to relevant content that you already have, somewhat in a 'wiki' fashion, but specific to those things your site focuses on.
Also, remember that images can link also, and any 'interesting' image should probably have a page or some sort of description or content that can be accessed by clicking on it.
Lastly, remember to make your links to external sites (pages that aren't yours) open up in a new window by adding target="_blank" to the href in the html, such as <A href="http://www.evolvedomains.com" target="_blank">. Most WYSIWYG (such as the Evolve-Amiro CMS) editors have a 'open in new window' for their hyperlinking tool.
Linking to Other Sites
When linking other websites to your own, we strongly recommend including a statement of your website linking policy. Below is a sample statement to help you.
From time to time, we may link our website to sites that may be of interest to our visitors but are not maintained by us. We are not responsible for the content of those sites, and inclusions of such links are not an endorsement of their content. Visitors' use of such sites and their content may be subject to guidelines or rules other than our own. Visitors should review those guidelines and rules when using those sites. Other websites may link to our homepage. Such a link does not mean that we endorse their content.
Checkpoints
With summer in full swing, it's time to make sure your website is caught up with your business. Here are a couple checkpoints to ensure you are making the most of your website.
- Ensure contact info is current and add 2007 copyright dates.
- Post new coupons/products/services and remove outdated references.
- Update staff bios to reflect any recent personnel changes.
Update Your Keywords
Whenever you update the content of your web pages, be sure to also update your keywords so that search engines will continue to find your site.
While editing a page in your Site Manager,
- Click to the "Options" tab
- Type in your new keywords
- Click "Apply"
It's that simple to keep your keywords updated!
Checking your Site Statistics
Do you know how many people are visiting your site? If you don't, it's time to find out! Your web statistics are a great and easy way to track the effectiveness of marketing programs. By comparing the number of visitors and unique visitors to your site every month you can see how effective a direct mail piece was, or if hits to your site increase around certain holidays or seasons.
To access your statistics, log into the admin panel of your CMS. Under the "Service" section, click "Hosting & Statistics" at the top of the 3rd column.
On the left-hand side of the screen click "Web Statistic." Here you can see how many hits you've gotten, what keywords people are using to search for your site, the duration of their visit, even the time of day they visited your site!
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