Here are a few tips from the Urbane Lab on how to create or improve your web site. If you’re creating your first apartment website, or just looking for a refresher course on how to get started, follow these Top 10 Tips for creating, maintaining, and improving your website.
Simple navigation is essential to effective website design.
Is your Web site navigation easy for users to understand? If not, a simple update to your site’s navigation design can help users better access your site’s content and information. But remember, too many navigation items can be challenging for users to follow. It is often better to group common pages together into a sub-navigation model.
Don’t overrun your pages with text.
It is important to limit the number of words on a Web page as pages with 10,000+ words tend to overwhelm the reader. Instead, analyze your existing content and create a structure that best organizes the information.
Keep your keywords in mind.
Identify three to five keywords phrases relevant to your business and incorporate them into your website content . This helps search engines identify your website when consumers are searching for relevant content. Ensure your keywords are focused on your type of business, target audience, and local niche (if applicable).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to increase your site’s exposure.
Continuous review of the keywords and descriptions used on each page of your website is essential when optimizing your website for better placement in major search engines. Proper page titles are also of major importance and are frequently overlooked. Meaningful page titles allow for better indexing by search engines and quicker content review by visitors.
Images really are worth a thousand words – when used correctly.
Decrease page load times by optimizing images for use on your site. Shaving off a few 100kbs from your images will save visitors’ bandwidth and speed up your image load times. Adding text descriptions (known as “alt tags”) to your images will also help search engines index your site.
Analyze your Web traffic.
Dissect the source of your Web traffic using Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics. This free utility features a variety of built-in reports and allows you to customize your own reports by filtering on a variety of variables. Use the information gleaned from your results to strategize future website improvements.
Ensure your website is XHTML/CSS 2.0 compliant.
Designing or redesigning your website to be Web 2.0 compliant will ensure it is viewable across all Web browser platforms. The Web design industry has come a long way in the last decade and the Internet’s most successful websites stay on the cutting-edge of design. Web 2.0 standards separate your website’s content from its layout, making it easier for search engines to index your site’s content.
Use a blog to open the lines of communication.
A blog is a Web journal designed to help you or your business communicate with your visitors. Easily share your latest news, opinions, products and services, and so much more. As search engines index blogs more frequently than other sites, maximize the power of your blog by providing interesting and thought-generating information; asking your readers for comments, questions, and opinions; and comment on readers’ feedback.
Keep in contact with your prospects and residents with an email newsletter.
Provide your readers and customers with an expert e-mail newsletter that offers interesting, timely, and entertaining information relevant to their interests. Newsletters that feature tips and advice are especially helpful. Giving your consumers the ability to register for your newsletter via your website provides an effective way of obtaining valuable contact and marketing information that can lead to future sales.
User-friendly sites ensure maximum use and profit.
Design your site to help visitors find key information. It is important to clearly identify ways for customers to contact you for more information, share ideas, obtain customer support, and buy products. If your site offers direct sales, you should feature an easy to use commerce system that makes it simple for customers to purchase your products and services.
Eric’s background is rooted in the rental and real estate industries. He founded metro Detroit’s Urbane Apartments in 2003, after serving as senior vice president for a major Midwest apartment developer. He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience.
He also established The Urbane Way, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine.
You can connect with Eric_Urbane on Twitter.
Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications;
Related Posts -
Internet Marketing; Local Search, How Are You Doing Our good friend and close marketing colleague, Jay Ehret form The Marketing Spot, did an informative podcast titled Local Search; The Game is Changing with Mike Ramsey, author of Nifty MarketingLocal Search is something that is pretty important to master and Internet Marketers need to understand and effectively execute. Is your Business listed in...... -
Putting my toe into content curating [/caption] As good as robots are, they're no match for a human being, whether it's customer service, anything that requires actual thinking, or, as it turns out, content aggregation. And whether you're pro- or against aggregation or content curation, the fact is it's happening anyway. So, what's better than robot-driven...... -
Apartment Marketing: Measuring web traffic conversion. Over the past couple of weeks the conversation on Apartment Marketing Gone Digital, which is a weekly Pod Cast with a handful of us in the industry every Tuesday evening, has started to drill down into how we are, or how we aren't measuring web traffic conversion on our apartment...... -
The Only 5 Things You Really Need to Know About SEO Our Guest Post today is from Brett Duncan, Vice President of Marketing at Mannatech. Brett blogs regularly at MarketingInProgress.com, where you can download his freemarketingebook of 33 mind-blowing ideas from today’s top marketers. For about the past eight years, the web marketing arena has seen its fair share of one-hit wonders, overnight sensations, game-changers and...... -
Make your Websites Works of Art Web Designers use Photoshop. This may seem like a fundamental no-brainer for your average front end designer, but for your WordPress theme developer, this can be a novel concept. I know it's popular and easy to pick a free or premium WordPress theme and just start tweaking away at the......
Related Websites -
Website Trade Secrets: What you don't know and most "experts" cannot or will not tell you Website Trade Secrets: What you don’t know and most “experts” cannot or will not tell you Do you run a small business? Whether you already have a website, or are thinking about getting one please, for your own sanity and the sake of your bank balance, read this! But...... - Why Does Website Design Matter Answer because your competitors is busting the gut to win your company. Theyre doing everything in their power to attract your customers to their website and also to take your online business. An excellent looking website, one which is compelling, {persuasive} and functions wonderful, add value. This enriches your customers'......
- Can Be There A Back-link Software Meant For Search Engine Optimization? Back-links, or back links, are a crucial building block inside the Search engine marketing (Web Optimization) process. Inbound links support engines like google to establish a web site's level of popularity nevertheless, simple one way links are usually not ample for boosting a website's rank in Search results (Search Engine......
- Tips For Choosing A SEO Company Even if you have a good knowledge of SEO & you try hard to get a good ranking, your site doesn’t do well. It is simply because your site needs to be optimized & maintained on a regular basis. It is a ongoing process which requires a lot of time.......
- Google Adsense - The Unique Autobusiness Model So what is make money online? Google says it is an ad-serving program where website owners can enroll to enable text and image advertisements on their sites— “a goldmine of opportunity for web publishers to monetise their online presence”. [ad#adstext1] Most of google's Web-based products are free because Google makes......
