How to Get Your Website to Stand Out

If you’re in business, you want your website to be noticed in a good way. There are several website design changes you should incorporate—and a few you should avoid—to get visitors to notice you and to convert them from passive lookers into faithful clients.

Do Your Keyword Research

Keywords are the words or phrases that visitors might enter to find your site. For instance, if you’re a dentist who specializes in working with nervous clients, your keywords might include “sedation dentistry” or “dental phobia.” Once you have come up with a list of possible keywords, it’s a good idea to research them on Google to find out how many of your competitors are using the same words or phrases. If you’re just getting off the ground and the competition is stiff, consider building your site around some of the less popular search terms. Once you have developed a following, you can always do a website redesign to incorporate the more popular keywords as well.

Provide Fresh Content

Yesterday’s news is…well, yesterday’s news. In this age of lightning-fast information, most visitors won’t be impressed with a site that was last updated years ago. Revisit your site regularly to make sure that the information you’ve provided is still accurate and that all the links still work.

Provide Relevant Content

During the early days of search engine optimization, a trick of website design was to use provocative titles (“Sex!”) to draw people into a website that had nothing to do with sex. Visitors were quick to catch onto this bait and switch game, however, and search engines were not far behind. Now if your page titles have nothing to do with your page content you’ll get a low search engine rating and most viewers won’t ever be able to find your site.

Make Your Site Visually Appealing

When visitors come to your site, they probably aren’t looking for a lot of bells, whistles, and other features that take ages to download. Think about the sites that you like to visit. Chances are, they do not feature flashing advertisements or garish color schemes. The best websites are those that use templates and images to complement the content and to guide the visitor as he or she navigates your site. If your site uses distracting gimmicks, it’s probably time for a website redesign.

Avoid Surprises 

Most visitors do not appreciate blaring music, flashing lights, distracting video feed, or pop-up advertising. Many people surf the Internet during work hours, and sites that make unexpected noises or otherwise attract the attention of others can get them in trouble.

Offer an Easy “Call to Action”

What do you want visitors to do once they’ve arrived at your site? Sign up for your newsletter? Buy a copy of your book? Call your sales department for a free quote? Whatever your goal, you’ll get more visitor to client conversions if you explicitly state one call to action that is easy to perform. For instance, if you want clients to sign up for your newsletter, they should not have to search all over your site to find out how to sign up; your website design should feature a brief, highly visible sign-up form that should appear on every page.

There are literally millions of sites on the Internet. In order to make visitors want to stay on your site, use strong website design to incorporate professional templates and images with fresh, relevant, keyword-rich content. A good website designer can help make your site stand out for all the right reasons.