Basics of Building a Site Worthy of Traffic

When deciding how to build a traffic worthy site, take a moment and answer this fundamental question: out of the nearly 240 million web sites that exist in the world, what makes yours worthy of some of the nearly 1.6 billion people who use the internet regularly to visit?

Consider these:

• Do my visitors have an enjoyable experience on my website?
• What is the quality of my content, and how does it relate to my visitors?
• Does the design of my site look professional and appealing?
• How can I develop strong links back to my site?

Do my visitors have an enjoyable experience on my website?

Ever clicked on a link on a site and had it go to a page that no longer exists and get frustrated by it? How about have to click through 20 seemingly pointless pages of a site just to finally get to the information you’re looking for? If you’re any veteran of the internet you’ve come across these or worse, and it’s an understatement to say that they’re frustrating. In visitor terms each of these usability issues has a negative impact upon the visitor’s experience. Visitors take things like broken links, difficult to read content with poor headings, a complicated navigational structure and difficult to access pages that take forever to load or regularly time out (to name a few things) as signs that a website is sub-par and therefore not worth their time.

Remember, there may be over a billion users out there but there are also hundreds of millions of websites and more keep coming up every day. That means that each website is in a constant struggle with the millions of others out there to draw in more visitors as right now there is roughly one website for every six to seven people who use the internet. In economic terms this means high supply of a product which in turn means greater consumer choice and flexibility. Make sure your website is fully functional and usable to keep drawing in traffic, otherwise you’ll find you’re losing customers quickly to your competition.

What is the quality of my content, and how does it relate to my visitors?

While search engines can’t directly tell if a site’s content is high quality and related to a topic, your users can. The more users who like your site, the more likely they are to link back to your site, recommend it to their friends, or simply be repeat visitors to your site. In short, the more you can draw in visitors the more your site can rise in search engine rankings. So how do you make sure you regularly develop high quality content for your users? A few key ideas you need to consider is research, resource development, and making information unique to users.

By going out and regularly visiting forums, newspapers or other information sources you can make sure that you have the most up-to-date information possible for your field. Nothing will hurt you more than constantly being out-of-date and providing yesterday’s news to users who have probably heard it all before at a dozen of other sites. With that in mind ask yourself, “How can I invent rather than imitate my peers?” Providing new, unique content to website visitors can help you keep on track with attracting more people to your site and make your site noteworthy to visitors.

Does the design of my site look professional and appealing?

Aside from simply getting all aspects of your site working properly and ensuring you have high quality content you also need to think about the looks of your site. The internet is littered with web pages that are poorly designed, have bad layouts, poor color schemes, or generally look unprofessional. At the same time it’s important to bear in mind what “professional” means to your audience. Take Sina.com for example, one of China’s most popular websites for social blogging and other news. At a glance most westerners tend to find it quite busy with lots of bright contracting colors and animation, pop-ups, and text-heavy pages with little detailed or smooth design, yet at the same time this is a culturally acceptable site look and is highly approved of by their users and other sites targeting the Asian market.

That said, know your target market and adjust for them accordingly. Make your site appeal to those you’re trying to target and keep adjusting with trends. For most people in the world, don’t do too many fancy things to your web pages (e.g. cascading waterfalls, fun tails on mouse pointers that track across the screen, etc.). Keep it simple, keep it professional, and keep it geared towards your target audience. “Google” didn’t become a verb by making a site full of every small little thing they could think of, they became synonymous with online search by focusing on one aspect and dominating the market in it. Do the same to your site and you’ll succeed.

For some examples of some of the best designed web pages using CSS, check out CSS Zen Garden

How can I develop strong links back to my site?

While this can get quite complicated if gone into detail and many people have essentially written books on different strategies for link building alone, there are a few basic things you can keep in mind when considering how to encourage people to link back to your site.

Develop something people can use. If you develop a new tool, a new process, even a new procedure on how to approach a situation, people can walk away from your site feeling like they’ve accomplished something with their visit. If and when they then use the thing you developed others will then know more about you and come check your site out. Viral marketing such as this is the key to success for many businesses around the world and is just the thing to get your name out there on the web.

Make it social. Provide reviews, do interviews, publish expert advice, develop a discussion community of likeminded people…anything where people feel they can be involved regularly and have quality feedback is sure to encourage repeat visitors and develop a following of those who will link back to your site. Remember, by nature people care about nobody more than themselves. Get them involved or interested in your site somehow by appealing to them socially and the links will start pouring in.

Visuals are your friend. Long gone are the days where pages of simple text alone was an appealing find. Add visuals to your page in the form of pictures or videos, particularly in areas where these are not expected (e.g. on a website for computer coding or writing as opposed to celebrity gossip tabloids, for example). Introducing fun, interesting visuals can keep people coming back for more and encourage people to share your site with their peers.

Remember, these are but a few of the many great ways to help develop links back to your site. If you’re starting off in a redesign take it slow, work some new ideas into your site, and always watch how your visitors react. If they react poorly to something take it off and replace it with something else, while if something is effective keep it up. It may take time to develop your pages, but in the long run it’s well worth it.