Websites 101 - Part 3
Choosing the Right Words for every page on your site

The internet is a text-based environment and everything you say reflects on you. Internet surfers are impatient and you have just one chance to capture their attention and make a good impression.

Your tone of voice, words chosen, dramatic pauses, etc. all reflect the meaning of what is being said over and above the actual words spoken. This is never more true than of website content. The words you choose says alot about you and your organization.

It can reveal:

• business priorities
• your attitude
• organizational structure
• customer focus
• how you deal with situations
• personality in stress related environment
• your attitude
• your ability to pay attention to detail
• your integrity and trustworthiness

So, what is your website saying about you? Are you sending out a positive and useful 'message' to potential customers?

Take a look at your site and find out - what is it saying to and about you.

What is the first page your visitors see? If a person clicks on a link from a search engine, will they find something of interest which makes them click your navigation to see more or will they leave immediately?

First, you have to understand how search engine's index sites. They don't just take your index (home page) and point to it. They actually gather ALL your links on your site and list each one.

Now that's a sobering thought. All those pages and every one needs to be as well written as your main page. So how do you accomplish this?

Make each page a mini-site

You should write each page so it stands alone on its own merits. Now that's all fine and good but what about the pages which just open new windows so you can give a little extra information or show a larger view of your graphic? How do you make them be stand alone pages?

Simple, you give the person coming from the search engine the opportunity (a hyperlink) to click over to your home page. A lot of site's forget this or think if they input the "no index" tag into their source code, the page won't be crawled.

Reality check - many robots/spiders do not pay attention to this tag. Besides, the idea here is to have as many different pages come up in search engines as you can.

Think about it, one page - one chance to have a targeted visitor. Multiply that times 50 or 100 pages (each with a different keyword or phrase) and your chance for a successful Internet business increases.

Yes, it's a lot of work to create a large site but you'll have what you want - "targeted" visitors. After all, they input your keyword into the search box and clicked on your link didn't they? This means they are already interested in what you have to offer.

------------

Related Articles:
Websites 101 - Part 1 - Choosing the Right Domain Name
Websites 101 - Part 2 - Tips on Providing Great Content
Websites 101 - Part 3 - Choosing the Right Words
Websites 101 - Part 4 - Writing the Right Copy