As the CEO of your company, you should get final approval of what your company’s website and web presence is going to look like. Let’s take a look at the main page of your website, shall we?
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It looks nice, doesn’t it? You’re not paying a lot of money for anyone to slap up something that looks hideous. Oh look, there’s some moving things, but they’re eye catching and you kind of like it, so you’re not upset with that. They spelled the name right, the colors are pleasant… looks like we’re good to go.
Well, not quite. One of the biggest mistakes I see with many business websites is there’s no real content on the main page to help identify what they do. For that matter, there’s not much content on the page at all quite often. If you’re a big name company like Sony or Walmart, you can get away with that because you’re already well known. But if you’re a small or medium sized business, or even a large business with a name that doesn’t roll off people’s tongues, your website will probably have some problems getting search engines to figure out what you do.
And that’s the big thing, isn’t it? That’s what SEO is all about, getting search engines to know who you are by what you do, not by your name. If everyone already knows your name, SEO becomes a non-factor. But if you need them to find what you’re offering by product or service, content is your most important factor to consider.
Are there some hard and fast rules? No, nothing like that. But there are some considerations you should consider to help your website gain some traction. They are:
1. Have at least 150 words on your main page. Other pages on your site should help reinforce what it is you do, but you help your cause greatly with a bit more front page content.
2. You need at least one H1 tag embedded in your content on your main page. Most people will tell you that you can only have one H1 tag, but you can actually have 2 if your business is diversified. With H1 tags, you don’t put your business name in there; you put in what it is you do or offer. It will show up as “bold”, and it automatically adds spacing, so it’s best to place it somewhere it can stand alone.
3. Make sure your first page content tells people what you do. So often I see bios of the business or industry speak that means nothing to a search engine. If you sell windows, say it. If you offer consulting in making quilts, say it. Your content should help reinforce your H1 tag.
There are other things of course but taking care of the first 3 will get you found by the search engines and you’ll get a traffic ranking. Then you can move on from there in working towards improving your position online and increasing your traffic.
Copyrighted content by SEO Xcellence © 2014
