Website Review!
This week we did a website review for Clinton Painting. Robert Clinton was able to join us and we had a very productive session! Robert has already made some changes to the site and we look forward to hearing how it helps him. We discussed several topics and I think we all learned! Because it was so long and so much material, I have created a timeline of the topics.
Introductions
We introduced the panel, Darren Slaughter, Tess Wittler and Heidi Nyline and myself for the first 5 minutes and then jumped right into the website review.
Page Titles and Keywords
5:00- Darren had some excellent advice on using the proper keywords and length of your title page. We discussed using keyword tools, longtail and niche keywords.
Linking your pages
16:00- How to create pages for your website and link them internally. This leads visitors deeper in your site and helps your SEO.
Running Specials
18:00-Robert had an offer on his site that generated traffic, but was not converting, the group helped him to understand how to effectively create a promotion and use a service like Mail Chimp and Contact forms to create a mailing list.
Platforms, Sidebars and Images
32:00-We discussed the difficulties using some of the free website building platforms when trying to add images and sidebars.
“Selling Pretty”
Heidi had some great points on using images to enhance your site. You can buy stock photos from places like Bigstock. Having your own pictures, matching the type of work you do, is the best option.
Have I arrived at the right place?
38:00-Overall, we all agreed Robert has a decent brochure type site. It was suggested he look at other sites for inspiration and look at it from a customer’s point of view. We discussed ways to collect and display customer testimonials.
Readability and Headings
48:00-Tess had some great points about breaking up the text using bullet points, bolding and images. We discussed using Header Tags, here is a video.
External Links
45:00- We discussed the best practices using links and directories.
Alt Image Tags
1:07-Using Alt Tags and properly naming photos is crucial for enhancing search results.
There is a lot of information to digest, and we hope Robert (and others) find it useful. He was a good sport! If you would like to have your website reviewed, please fill out the contact form here.
A special thanks to all who participated!
Great job. I can not believe all the pieces that go in to a good web site. I guess building a web site is like painting, hire a professional for great results.
Keep up the great work and thank you for all the help you all give us.
Thanks Steve, good point. We are fortunate to have the likes of Tess and Darren to share what they do so well!