How To Create An Effective Website?

We will discuss in this article the essential lines of thought to have when you want to design your website. Indeed, beyond the "technical" issues, it is especially important to think about the content that you are going to offer to your Internet users and about the browsing experience.

Before even thinking about development, you can therefore start creating your pages as simple doc / word files, using the following tips as a guideline. It will then be even easier to set up, since all you have to do is send your agency or webmaster these different contents, or create them yourself with simple copy and paste!

The 6 Golden Rules For Designing An Effective Website

• Rule 1: Simplicity is the basis of efficiency!
• Rule 2: Your website's home page isn't the most important for those who don't know you! It is only useful for those who know your brand and / or have heard of it (word of mouth, business rd, sagon, etr.). Cfnvedsely, “deap”epages (yowr pages explaining your offers / products) are “landing pages” for Internet users who do not know you and are looking for something specific that you offer. These pages are therefore the source of prospect if they are optimized for SEO.
• Rule 3: You don't make a site for yourself, but for your (future) customers: for that you have to understand who they are, their issues (what they're looking for), and what “product sales pitch” can appeal to them! Put yourself in their shoes!
• Rule 4: The Internet user is "volatile": If, looking through the headlines of the page on which he arrived, he does not feel concerned, then he zaps! You must therefore be very succinct and get to the point in your texts and titles, to make the Internet user want to know more and therefore spend time reading what you offer!
• Rule 5: The more the Internet user “goes down” in the page, the more he is supposed to be interested… The top of the page is therefore a succinct approach to the treated subject, and the more we go down the more it is “developed”
• Rule 6: In fact, you never end a page deadlocked! If the Internet user has gone all the way to the bottom, he is probably interested and he must be given possibilities for action: read another complementary article, contact you...

The Typical Tree Structure Of A Website

Even if there are very big visual differences, the majority of websites are designed according to an efficient logical architecture , proven thanks to the analytics for a long time.

Here are the basics of designing a tree for any type of site. The functional differences will then intervene on specific markets in order to make it easier for the Internet user to navigate; but let's not forget: the more content you have (products / services…) the more you will have to think about your tree structure so that it appears easy to access.

• Home page: A very brief view of what you offer (overall site overview)?// for those who know your brand / research.
• "Category" page (list): Presentation of what you offer to meet a global need. This page will include text to fully understand the category, and then the list of specific “Products / Services” that you offer.?// for Internet users who do not know you and who have a fairly large demand on a "theme" ...
• Product page 1, 2, 3…: Presentation of your offer / service 1, 2, 3…, in detail! The more text there is, the better, especially for referencing… And of course without forgetting the golden rules 4, 5 and 6…?// intended for Internet users who do not know you and who have a very high demand. precise to which you provide an answer ...
• Conversion: If your "product" page has been correctly done and optimized for SEO, it is supposed to have met the need expressed by the Internet user during his research. It will have to include "call to action" (elements of incentives such as button etc ...) allowing the Internet user to indicate his interest in one way or another: request for additional information, making contact, adding to the shopping cart for a commerce site or even direct purchase.

The Importance Of The Conversion Process

Faced with the difficulty of attracting an Internet user to his site, then to interest him to the point that he wishes to "take the plunge", it would be a shame to frustrate him at this last stage of "transformation / conversion" and that he does not finish not his action! So it is essential to plan a very simple process:

• for a contact form, only ask for essential information. a form that is too long can put off an Internet user. There will always be time to relaunch it later if you are missing "optional" information.
• for an ecommerce site, there are many steps to follow, but which must also be optimized so that the Internet user does not “abandon” his purchase: validation of the basket, creation of the user account, choice of delivery method, payment, etc. The interface must be simplified as much as possible and the user should be guided so that he knows where he is at all times.
• for other purposes (document downloads, establishing contacts, finding the nearest point of contact / sales), it is also essential to offer uncluttered navigation and with the simplicity of navigation first and foremost in mind!

The Ideal Path For The Internet User

As stated in the golden rules, the home page is not the most important for traffic generation. It's important for those who hear about your brand or search, but it's not optimized for specific search engine queries.

You, who are reading this article, surely did not arrive here by going through the agency's home page, but by a specific search on a search engine which brought you directly to this article, or another page referring you to this one!

The ideal path to optimize is therefore:

1. Specific Google search
2. Visit of your product / service pages (sales pitch)
3. Conversion (Contact for more information or online sales.)

As you can see, if your product pages are effective, they alone are enough to generate leads or business sources.

Ideal Typical Composition Of A Product Page

The content architecture of your product page is essential to capture the attention of the Internet user and encourage them to go to the conversion stage. To put it simply, here is a typical architecture that works, based on the famous “Golden Circle” model in marketing: Why? How? 'Or' What ? What ?

• Title of the page, corresponding to the need typed by the user in google
• Section 1 - Your problem : Brief reminder of the problems encountered by the Internet user, so that he identifies himself and knows that this page is good for him
• Section 2 - Our solution : Description of your solution, what it brings unique, and why the Internet user will be very happy to become one of your customers
• Section 3 - Reinsurance : customer testimonial which confirms the quality of the product / service (beware of false testimonials! It is very easy to identify some!) To validate an authentic testimonial, a photo or better still an interview video will be the best proof for the Internet user.
• Section 4 - Call to action : It must be an incentive but not too “commercial” / “cheap”
• End.

User vs SEO

The problem comes down to bringing together two very opposite worlds :

Your Internet user, very volatile who wants a succinct approach to see if he is interested and to make his choice between leaving or staying

Google bot, which for its part needs "toast" including key words , repetitions of these, synonyms etc ... in order to "qualify" your page. And for google, the more text there is (of quality concerning the subject treated), the better.

We therefore recommend that you think of your pages in 2 parts: The upper part for the Internet user, the lower part for google.

In fact, the architecture proposed above can be “optimized”:

• Title of the page
• Section 1 - Your brief issue, with links to section 5 for those who want to know more
• Section 2 - Our short solution, with links to section 5 for those who want to know more
• Section 3 - Short reinsurance, with links to section 5 for those who want to know more
• Section 4 - Intermediate call to action for internet user s whose succinct content is sufficient to convince
• Section 5 - Content developed from se ctions 1 2 and 3 for those who wish to know more and for google
• Section 6 - End call to action for Internet users who wanted to know more with section 5.
• End.

To ensure good SEO, be sure to respect the hierarchy of titles within your page! Indeed it matters a lot for google in order to understand the content architecture of your page. Do not, for reasons of style preferences, make a level 3 subtitle, followed by a level 4 subtitle! Observe well

Level 1 title (the name of your page, which must be unique), then several level 2 sub-titles (corresponding for example to the different sections of pages) and within them sub-sub - level 3 titles and so on. If the style of a heading level doesn't suit you, talk to the developer / designer, who can change it.

Other techniques are also involved to "push" the brief page to the Internet user: Links (internal or external) . Indeed, the more pages with related content linked to your product page make links to it, the more it will be considered in terms of referencing as "important" and therefore put forward.

The same goes for "external" links: the more third-party internet sites dealing with the same subject as your page link to it (and the more well-known the sites are), the more it will also be considered as important. reference office on the domain. For these topics I refer you to our article on SEO optimization , or contact us to find out more if you have a specific SEO project!

Conclusion

This article has outlined the main lines allowing you to design your typical tree structure and the contents of your pages in an efficient way . However, there are many solutions to further improve the user experience and the ergonomics of your site, while optimizing it for its referencing. These solutions often depend on your area of intervention, the richness of your content / offers, your competitors, your budget and, of course, the digital maturity of your target Internet users (buyer personas).