Continuing from last week, this week’s article will explore some basic tips and methods for effective homepage management.
6. Provide many paths.
When creating a website, web managers must realize that each visitor could potentially be searching for your website for a unique reason, looking for a particular product or piece of information. To facilitate organic navigation and discourage visitors from bouncing away immediately, web managers should provide many different paths, rather than trying to guide visitors all through the same, possibly irrelevant pages. If a user is searching for some product or information which your website has, make it easy for them to find it or else they may look elsewhere. For example, if a borrower would like to know the loan limits for FHA loans, create a specific webpage for these limits, rather than forcing the reader to go through a comprehensive page about the FHA program.
7. Employ images.
While many website managers may not consider them so, images can be just as important as headlines or promotional text on a webpage. Accordingly, web managers should take special care when choosing images, ensuring that the images for each linked page are relevant and similar. While close-up images, especially of people in action, tend to work better than vast scenes, avoid choosing the same shot for every image on your website. Remember, a broken or bad-quality image will likely be the first thing which a visitor notices and forms an impression upon.
8. Craft your text format.
Though the majority of visitors will not notice when text is correctly and carefully formatted, the same majority would certainly notice if formatted incorrectly. Although font and formatting may have little to do with your website, whether a mortgage website or concerning some other product, it can still have a significant impact and severely influence credibility. Make efficient use of space when formatting text, and always avoid comic sans.
9. Research web analytics.
In the current age, the internet has grown overwhelmingly sophisticated, and search engine optimizers now have access to data which gives substantial insight into the behaviors of each web visitor. With free tools and online tutorials, web managers need to take advantage of these resources to become an expert in web analytics. Using these tools, web managers need to consider and analyze where users enter the site, how much time they spend on each page, what content they peruse, and which pages they exit on. For instance, if you find that one of your information pages has a high bounce rate, find out what keywords have led visitors to that page and adjust the content to satisfy this search; if the content already exists, make it easier to find and digest.
10. Schedule content updates.
Using analytics, web managers will be able to locate the times of the day in which the website attracts the most visitors. With this information, effective web managers can schedule content updates to address this higher traffic and to increase monetization. For instance, if you discover that a majority of visitors come to your website at 9am and 3pm, schedule content to be released accordingly, and visitors will be more inclined to return to your website as a regular.
Check back in next week for the conclusion of Managing your Website: Homepage Tips.