Online technology has come a long way since the advent of the Internet. The plethora of websites floating in cyberspace has created an entirely new industry that aims to direct high quality traffic from one website to another. Archaic models of online marketing through keyword stuffing and superfluous have been replaced with the need for quality content and strategic marketing.
As the cliché goes, “Content is King”. Having great content on a website that is relevant its target industry will give that site a step above the competition. Search engine robots are hungry for new material and having fresh content on a website will keep them coming back for more which in turn will bring up its page rank and increase the flow of traffic. Being strategic in when new content is posted and where will take a website even further. Knowing the quirks, habits, likes and dislikes of the audience and being able to take advantage of that marketing knowledge can further improve the standing of a website.
However, these tactics only focus on serving the insatiable search engine robots and does not address the human factor. A website should also be easy to navigate and be aesthetically pleasing. Robots may not care about the aesthetics of a website, but a potentially new customer visiting the site will. There are a host of companies that hopped on the cyber train very early and created websites for their businesses hoping to benefit from the additional online traffic. Perhaps in the antiquated days of the Internet these old websites were successful, but the game has changed drastically since then. Some of these sites were created with old content management systems that did very little if anything for search engine optimization. For these relics, a new facelift may be just the nudge it needs to compete for better traffic generation.
In the redesign process, the developers ought to consider new web standards and navigation structures. Friendly and marketable URLs should be used on all pages. Use optimization tools that keep a website from having duplicate titles, tags, and content. For blogs, fix canonicalization issues. Name and tag website images for even better optimization. Another thing to consider that can be easily overlooked is to properly redirect URLs from the old website that had gained good traction in ranking to the new site.
These are just a few quick tips that can improve a website’s online presence.