Make Your Website Better To Rank

We see dozens of guides and tutorials on how we should make our websites better to rank, convert, and perform. On the other hand, theres so much wrong-doing, it can be easier for you to STOP doing some things to get better results with your online presence. Below Ive outlined the 17 most popular sins Ive identified on my customers websites within the last 2 years.

1. Stop posting pathetic useless promotional content

I do realize, some boring niche companies find it pretty hard to create a content strategy and produce fascinating content on a regular basis But its not an excuse for publishing something-of-no-use to anyone. The frequency doesnt matter that much, focus on the needs of your users, customers and followers. Need inspiration? Take a look at these companies creating great content on boring topics.

2. Stop stealing lame stock images they are not so super effective anyway

Yes, you got me right theres not much sense in stealing stock images. On the one hand, you are abusing someones copyright. On the other, many stock photos look rather lame and boring (I just cant stand anymore the pictures of a team of professionally smiling people).

Dozens of studies and experiments prove that users are more attracted by amateur pictures that look true-to-life, though they can miss a polished glamorous look. As James Chudley put in his guide on using photos to sell:

  • Show off your products benefits

  • Make visitors laugh

  • Tell a story and show how to do something (step-by-step guides with pictures simply rock!)

  • Be consistent and professional.

3. Stop ignoring your readers

Ive seen it everywhere an interesting post with great points and a dozen of user comments that are left unnoticed. Isnt the author interested in what readers think? Why not answer their questions, if any? Or, if you didnt plan to spend time on comment discussions, why did you decide to have a commenting module in the first place?

Talk to your readers, appreciate their opinion, ask them questions, give them links to the related content this is the way to build up a healthy community!

4. Stop using big words

If your target audience comprises mostly PhDs, then I may be wrong. If not, consider using simpler wording for your website copy and blog posts. Here are just some examples to give you the idea:

use instead of utilize

near instead of close proximity

help instead of facilitate

for instead of in the amount of

start instead of commence

And since I mentioned the topic of words, dont forget the mighty five: you, free, because, instantly, new they wont do any magic to your pages, but they proved to be more effective regarding conversion rates.

5. Stop writing novels

Users scan texts its a well-known fact still ignored by the majority of bloggers and website owners. Why? Sometimes, because theyve heard that for the sake of SEO, they should have a lot of text Or they wanted to write more than their competitors

Whatever the reason, the result can be pretty sad your page bounce rates will escalate with the amount of plain unformatted text.

But what to do if you need to cover a large topic? First of all, think of a Wikipedia style and use:

  • Table of contents

  • Internal links

  • Relevant images and photos

  • Make paragraphs concise and short (1 idea per paragraph)

  • Format the page to make it easy to scan

Additionally, you can split really large articles into parts just dont forget to link the posts with one another.

6. Stop using tiny fonts

Well not only tiny, the yellow text on the blue background would make me close the page even faster. The thing is that many websites are designed by designers (and it is logical), however some designers underestimate the importance of text and implement smaller fonts. As a result, we get a beautiful page, but a page we dont want to read (and even scan).

Did you know that making your content font size a bit larger can even impact the conversion rate?

7. Stop requiring a registration unless its really necessary

Users naturally avoid situations they feel might compromise their privacy. Asking them to register is one of such situations they feel skeptical about. Mike Fisher makes a very good point on registration in his post:

If you need to require registration, make sure that users

  • Understand what theyre getting after registering

  • Believe its of significant value to them

  • Know that their personal information will be safeguarded

Offering users to register with their existing Facebook/Twitter accounts can be a good idea, as it simplifies the procedure, however you should still remember the three points mentioned above.

8. Stop overusing Flash

Just a couple of days ago I discussed a website redesign with the owner of a small dog food shop. When I asked how she wanted the website to look like, she replied:

I guess there should be some long red curtains and you have to click to open them. After that youll find yourself in a cinema hall where dogs and cats are sitting and watching a film about the food for cats and dogs.

Well, the idea itself may be not so brilliant, but we realize that in most case well need to use the Adobe Flash technology to create something of this kind, which is NOT search-engine-friendly. On the other hand, will this fascinating Flash intro persuade me to purchase more items? I think a smart offer or a coupon discount would work much better!

9. Stop blending advertising within the content

Its a little bit frustrating to be lured by an interesting guide or a case study to find out you are just being offered a new copywriting course, an SEO e-book, or paid consulting. Even when you run a pay-per-click campaign, do not lie to users in ad copies their frustration will fire back so hard.

10. Stop testing your website in 1 browser only

Pretty self-explanatory. No matter how rare you use IE, its still very popular with users.

11. Stop using unreadable captchas

There are some horrible captchas out there Fortunately, you can use some friendlier versions of them, like these ones:

12. Stop being afraid of linking out

We should blame the search engines for this one there were times when people where linking out to the related useful content they wanted to share with the users. Now, what we have today is the COMMON belief in BAD external links. How much PR am I going to lose? What kind of anchor should I choose?

Does this website link back to me? Or maybe Ill just mention it in text without inserting a link?! Now take a look at Wikipedia articles and youll get the answers. Linking out is totally fine.

13. Stop ignoring the social mentions of your website

Heres the big truth: even if you dont have any website-related accounts in social media, you can still be discussed there! Sometimes, you just need to search for your website mentions (either directly or setting up specific alerts with the tools, e.g. BuzzBundle) to discover positive, neutral and negative comments and discussions.

14. Stop cluttering pages with badges and counters

Well, you can showcase your awards and achievements on the About page, but its not a good idea to clutter all pages with this information. And most users do not care if they are number 159,780.

15. Stop lying to customers

This ones crucial: when you lie to your customers (for instance, do not disclose full payment details), it can cause a catastrophe, burst out on dozens of forums and blogs where people would describe you as a scammer and discourage others from using your service/product.

16. Stop auto-playing video and audio

Thats annoying and feels like my private space is being violated I want to decide myself whether I want to watch or listen to anything on your website.

17. Stop planning start doing

Theres a lot of internet marketing and strategy dropped on you daily dozens of ideas and plans to implement. The big question is are you doing it? Some people take planning so seriously, they never get down to actually implementing the useful stuff. If this is about you stop planning and start doing something right away, this is the only way to see what really works and make things work better for you.

So what do you think, which sins are worst and which ones youd like to add to this list?


ARTICLE SOURCE : This factual content has not been modified from the source. This content is syndicated news that can be used for your research, and we hope that it can help your productivity. This content is strictly for educational purposes and is not made for any kind of commercial purposes of this blog.
By: Anna Smith