Checklist for a Successful Website

Have you just completed designing website for your company or your business ? Have you just redesigned your website ? If yes, than are you sure that your website is going to acheive all the purposes that it has been set out for ? Are you sure your website is going to be successful ? Are you sure that potential customers can find your website in top rankings on various search engines ?

Web Designing technologies, application and development change so rapidly nowadays that the site you developed just a few months back might be outdated as of now, and with the technological changes in web designing your website might seem obsolete. Here are a few points which you should consider while designing a website to make your website a successful one which will get potenial customers and rank higher on a search engine.

Is your website Compatible ?
Your website should display correctly, in its intended form, shape & design to all the visitors of your website regardless of them using whatever computers, operating systems, browsers and monitor resolution. You will have to make sure that the website displays correctly to all the users. Some websites need some plugins or players to display the content - if that is the case with your website than a download link for such plugins and players should be provided, so that the users who do not have such plugins or players can download it instantly and view your content. If possible, you can lso provide a guide on how to install such plugins or players on different page on your website.

If your website Complete ?
NONE, repeat, None of the web pages on your website should be under construction. Usually, website designers develop a site over a period of time, and in most cases your websitee will never be truly completed, but for that you should not leave your website or a web page under construction. If you do not have the content or information to be put up on a page ---- then do not put that page on the website now ---- you can do that later when you have the information or content -- but do not put up a under construction page.

Does your website have relevant content ?
You need to keep a watchful eye on the content that is being published on your website. Legal & technical implications apart --- the content on your website has several other implications on the search engine rankings. Make sure that you have relevant content for all your pages like Home Page, About us page, products page, services page, Contact page etc. All the information mentioned should have been created or developed by you or the web designer. Is the information on your website relevant, accurate, complete and current ? Do a watchful query on whether the content on your website is original and not copied from some other sources or website. Duplicate content will not help your website to acheive top rankings in search engines.

The content on your website should be checked for the correctness of spelling, typos and incorrect grammar.

What is Graphics to Text ratio on your website ?

A graphics effect or image or a flash effect is meant to attract the visitors of your website, but it should not be overdone to such an extent that the visitor gets involved in the graphics and forgets about the sales message of your website. At the same time, your website should also not look poor in the terms of graphics. So, the key word here is 'balance', there shuld be a right mix of text content and graphics on your website. If your website has more graphics and text, it will be very difficult to get higher search engine rankings. The ideal text to graphics ration on your website should be 80:20, that is to say 80% should be text and 20% should be graphics/images.

Is your website Interactive ?
We all like something that involves us, that is to say we like something wherein we can also participate, meaning we all like interactivity. Now, consider the same for your website. Is your website interactive ? Does the visitor of your website feel included as a part of your website ? If you can do this, than half the battle is won. You have been able to make the visitor a part of your website and thats a good thing for search engine promotion. You can include many components and small snippets which can make your website interactive like adding a message board, comments, mailing list, polls etc. You can also add a blog to your website where you can publish articles or your thoughts or news from the industry, which will make yuor website interactive and it will also tempt the visitors to come to your site often.

What is the link structure of your website ?
Thoroughly check all the links on your website. The links should all be pointing to their correct intended pages, there should be a clear heirarchy of links, and all of the links should be working. There should not even a single broken link. If you are linking to an external website, check often the correctness of the links as that might change over a peiod of time. If you have dead links on yorur website, edit them or remove them immediately as that might frustrate your visitors.

How fast does your website load ?
Check your website with different internet connections and gauge the speed at which your website loads. Ideally your website shuold load within the first 8 seconds, because that is the average attention span of the internet surfers around the world. If you fail to present your website or yourself within the first 8 seconds than probably you have lost a potential customer. The website loading speed depends on various factors, ofcourse first of it being the internet connection speed of the visitor, amount of graphics on your website, the web server that you are hosted on and the bandwidth of your web server. Graphics take up a lot of time to load, hence graphics should be use at those places where absolutely necessary.

Choose your web host who can provide your good bandwidth and almost 99% uptime of your website, because you do not want your website to be down when a potential customer visits your website.

Is it easy to navigate your website ?
Your website contains information, about your company and products or services. But, pay attention to the question, Is it easy to find information on your website ? Do you have the mandatory pages like home, about us, products, services, contacts etc. The home page or the index page which is the first one which loads should contain links to all the other pages on your website. The links should be presented in a logical presentation, in such a way that all the information is presented to the web site visitor at a glance.

How many Incoming links does your website have ?
It is very important that your website be referred through other websites or blogs related to your industry. Search engines depend on links from other websites to your website to include your website in their index. The more incoming links for your website that you have -- the better. The more RELATED links your website has from related websites - the best. It is to say that if you have a business of manufacturing exercise notebook manufacturing machinery --- then getting a link from a fashion website would server no purpose while getting a link from a notebook manufacturers website will be considered in high regard by the search engines.

Is your website optimized for Search engine promotion ?
Your website should be optimized for search engine promotion, it should rank higher for important keywords in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Altavista etc. Also make sure that you make optimum use of title, keyword and description tags. Make usre that the keywords and description you mention are relevant and contain your keywords. Also take note that your important keywords should be included in the description mentioned on the website.

What is the style of your website ?
Each website has its own distinct style and makes its own statement. What style does your website have ? What statement does your website male. Is it enhancing your company image ? Does it define your business goals. Is it user friendly ? How does your website fare with your competitors website ? The look and feel of your website should be easy going, attractive and friendly so that reflects your corporate image and helps build business. If your site does not have have this, than probably its time for redesigning of website.

Is your website usable ?
Website being usable identifies with the fact how easily your website visitors can make use of your website. The best way to know this is to get feedback from the visitors. If there are complaints, comments or questions from your website visitors than you should change your website according to that. Remember one thing, you are not making website for yourself, but for visitors and potential customers --- hence a website should be made according to what they like.

Web design Temple is a web designing company which designs website encompassing all the above points and ensures that your website becomes successful and has many visitors which will result into increases business for you.

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