Web Design - Top Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Site

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 March 2010 18:59 Thursday, 04 March 2010 18:59

Web Design - Articles

By Roberto Garabell

 Attractive web design is just the first step to successful web entrepreneurship. Marketing, accessibility on multiple browsers and search engine rankings can make or break your websites' reach. Here are some tips and tricks you can use to improve the overall effectiveness of your website and turn it into a highly profitable venture.


Permission-based Marketing

Get customers' permission to send e-mails and newsletters to them. Prefer double opt-ins, wherein customers subscribe to messages once on your website and then confirm their subscription through e-mail. Provide them with a clearly defined privacy policy and inform them about how often, daily, weekly or monthly, you will be sending messages to them. Do not forget to include opt-out messages in your emails to ensure compliance with the law. Offering discount coupons and vouchers give visitors additional incentives to sign-up.

E-mail Marketing

Use HTML to give your emails a professional look. Use customizable templates to reduce your work effort. Alternatively, you can hire e-mail marketing services or even web designers to create interesting emails for you. Add a concise and appealing subject line to your emails and double check them for spelling and grammar mistakes.

To keep customers coming back to your site, make your emails attractive in appearance and content. Do not go overboard with lengthy messages. Just add short messages with interesting content. Add a 'tip of the week' or discount offer in your emails to ensure that subscribers read them instead of simply putting them in trash.

Design for Multiple Web Browsers

Your site should appeal to customers, irrespective of the web browser they use to access it. Make sure that your site works well in popular web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer. To make it work consistently across multiple browsers you may just have to tweak a bit for each browser.

Get Linked Up From Other Sites

Design a website that attracts other website owners to link up with you. Website links on relevant sites can significantly improve your rankings in organic search results. Get linked up to sites that offer products complementing your products. Send out emails to prospective link partners explaining reasons as to why they should add a link to your website on their sites. Always offer a link back in return. Once you have agreed to exchange links, promptly list the other website's link. Also, check if the other website has added a link to your site on their web pages.

Building links is a time-consuming and ongoing process, so do not lose your patience. While link exchange is a good start, you should aim to get other sites to link with you without having to exchange a link. This can be accomplished by writing interesting articles and publishing them in article directories across the net. You may also bookmark your web pages on dofollow social bookmarking sites to get SEO some juice. Remember to add a link to your site with desired anchor keywords.

Key Keywords

The right keywords and phrases are essential for the success of your search engine marketing campaign. Be creative and experiment with new search terms for maximum benefit. Ask family and friends to suggest keywords and phrases. You may also like to use the free Google keywords tool to get keyword ideas. Regularly monitor the effects of your chosen keywords and refine them for maximum effectiveness.

Use these tips and tricks to increase the appeal of your website, its search engine rankings and visibility. Implement them and get ready to reap the rewards of a successful web business.

Before you hire a vendor, compare web design quotes from multiple vendors. For further information, read our website design advice.

Daljeet Sidhu is at TradeSeam. Read our