Question

Topic: Website Critique

Advice On The "look" Of Website Pages

Posted by juliew on 6/16/2011 at 10:27 AM ET 75 Points
I am a one-person marketing department for a small business that provides water treatment products and services to residential, commercial and industrial clients. Redid website 4 years ago. After voicing some concerns with my ad agency was referred to another website company for a demo. We currently show up in top 5 of organic Google search for a few of the cities in our market area. Always want to improve of course. Demo person was great, but I noticed that their pages are just FULL of content - both sides and in the middle. To me, it looks like a Facebook page - yes, I understand that is not a bad thing. My pages - especially the home page - are more what I would call "clean" have more space around them little content. The demo person was kind enough to tell me that Google wants 300+ words per page hence the need to fill up my home page. I am trying to not to stick my head in the sand here, so please can you fill me in on what you have found to be successful in web design? Is "clean" with open space on a page no longer desirable to consumers? Should my website look more like a Facebook page? My national brand competitors seem to have a home page that looks more like mine but that doesn't make it correct. Thanks for your time!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by mgoodman on 6/16/2011 at 11:26 AM Moderator
    What's the objective of the website? How do people find it/get there? What does success look like for your company?

    It's important to step back and answer those questions, because what you do with the website will depend on what the objective is and how you're measuring success.

    One thing you might want to consider is creating specific landing pages so you can be highly relevant to each visitor. You might also want to segment site visitors as soon as they land on a landing page (or even your homepage), again so you can be as relevant as possible to each visitor.

    The one-size-fits-all homepage is fast becoming obsolete, unless it is extremely focused on a specific, narrow target audience with a compelling single-minded benefit promise and a clear call to action.
  • Posted by juliew on 6/16/2011 at 11:40 AM Author
    Thanks for the help so far!!! Just to clarify, I do indeed update information on the site regularly, but PhilGrisolia4Results is correct someone coming back to the site over the last 4 years would see the same homepage. To the Facebook comment, I would love to use Facebook more, but others here are nervous about what we share - just so you know. That, of course, is another forum question for another day.
    Thanks again!!
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 6/16/2011 at 12:06 PM Member
    Expanding on Mgoodman's question "What's the objective of the website? How do people find it/get there? What does success look like for your company?" - sometimes you need to make a choice between SEO and usefulness to human web site viewers.

    If you make changes that get you top listing on Google, but when people arrive they aren't able to figure out what you do or how to order, you are missing out. You have to figure out the goal of the site and then the right balance that gets you best listing for those free leads, but also a useful site so you can close those leads.
  • Posted on 6/19/2011 at 4:07 PM Accepted
    Remember content is KING.

    I really believe that all this SEO has gotten out of hand.
    It is very passive, hoping you get the right keyword, focusing on what new words will attract some visitor. Rather than actively hunting out the companies that you would like to have as customers. IMHO, SEO has destroyed the professional relationship and the loyalty that relationship once held.

    If you have segmented the market and adopted a sub market strategy and produced the content that is wanted and needed by your client base, then the customers will be more tempted to visit and stay on your site. More importantly to contact your company.


    If you segment the markets, then research and actively pursue companies in those sub markets I think you would be doing a better service to the prospective customer.

    Having the content that informs, persuades and ultimately provides a value to the prospective customer, is much more important than identifying 1 keyword that someone will type in, and out of the thousands of web pages find your website.

    If I were you, I would do some SEO on your main keywords in the product pages, white papers etc., then spend most of the time researching companies in your target markets, going on linkedin finding contacts, then cold call them, find out what their problems/concerns are, update the website based on those concerns and point the perspective customer to the value that you offer.

    Or you could be like everyone else fighting for the 1 magic, silver bullet keyword that will attract everyone to your site. Of course you are only one individual with multiple responsibilities and other companies have 1 dedicated person for SEO.

    To answer your question, SEO has changed. Clean home page, 1 keyword per other page. Photo should also be named the same as keyword as well as video. 10% density of the keyword. Use google adwords for number of search terms /month and competition usage. All social networks, any links to your pages that come from high ranking sites i.e. Industrial Waterworld publication. Look over google analytics for your page if you have installed the code to get a sense of what your bounce rates are, what keywords people are searching to get to your site etc. then go on from there.

    I think knowing why someone is typing in a keyword is more important than the keyword itself. How can you position the marketing message so people wouldn't have to search for an answer, rather how can you get them the answer they are looking for so they don't have to search for it.
  • Posted by juliew on 6/21/2011 at 10:10 AM Author
    Thanks again to everyone who responded. I appreciate that m_steilen took extra time to explain some helpful ideas to make things better. I obviously am continuing to learn a lot but I appreciate your very thorough and yet kind approach to feedback.
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