When building a website, a designer or marketer should know about "information architecture". This is a fairly easy concept for some content writers, yet very difficult for those that may be too close to any project. Many times it is better to hire an outside marketing agency. This is because they are not as close to the subject as you are, and they may offer a fresh perspective. Also, remember not to get caught up in tools that are supposed to enhance your website, such as website portals and/or ad submission tools. These can create some benefits, but must be utilized after your basic SEO is correct. The most important thing is understanding what information is most important and what terms and phrases drive the most traffic to your website.  

In search engine optimization, there is no easy way to get high rankings. Also, it cannot be bought. We simply need to have content that is directly related to individual search queries. We many times overlook the structure of information on our websites. Without diving into the psychology of the buyer, we need to make content and product information easy to find and navigate. Good navigation on your website is very important to ensure users do not become frustrated. You must know what should be in the main navigation bar, as well as what can be put into a dropdown. For instance, if you are selling oranges and that's your main money maker, you don't want the "orange" button underneath "fruits". You may want "oranges" to have its own button as a result of the product's success. This process is generally managed by sales results and what information is driving those sales. At times, clients tell me they don't want to change their layout too much because they have a lot of sales. I can understand that frame of mind; if it's not broken, don't fix it. Unfortunately, this is not easily determined in the web world. Things may very well be broken. You could be having two times the sales, but you would never know that because you don't want to test the waters. Generally, in my experience, there is always room for improvement. You would be surprised to learn many of the larger websites use bad SEO practices. This is generally because they feel they are so large that they do not need to worry about it. Even large news networks have competition and should focus on SEO. It does not matter if your business is large or small. You can almost always use tweaking and optimization to improve your website.

Many times, when the company allows me change their web structure, they gain more sales because it became easier to find and purchase a specific product. You really do have to guide people through the site and the checkout process. Also, as a side note, I do not recommend Paypal. Please use something like Autorize and save yourself a headache. You may want to offer PayPal in addition to another (for those who trust PayPal). However, do not use that as your main merchant account if you want to have a professional website. Knowing where to place items on your page is important to the success of your website. Also, remember that attention spans have shortened dramatically, and thus, we have only seconds to gain attention and convert that into a prospect or sale.

People seem to hate long forms and too much text. On the opposite hand, people love video and movement on WebPages. Currently, people appear to love social media. Therefore, it is growing rapidly. Social media is sharing information about yourself, including topics you are interested in. This is a huge revolution in marketing. Never before has there been the ability to isolate our demographic audience in such a way. If a company was selling bras using advertisements in newspapers and/or magazines, they had to hope a woman read their article. Currently, a bra company can eliminate the cost of sending ads to men. The company now has the possibility to put their ad on the web in a specific market where the audience is much larger and more targeted. Advertisers now know more information about their users and can understand if the return on their investment is spent wisely.

When mandating information architecture on your website, always remember there must be a balance. Text is important to spiders, but many times not to consumers. When people first arrive at a site, there is something that always grabs their eye. When arriving on a webpage, it is usually not text that the person focuses on. Text is second rate to graphics, especially video, when it comes to grabbing potential customer attention. Therefore, video and graphics about your service or product is a great way to transfer a message to people. Text is necessary for the search engines, and therefore, we must find a balance between text and graphics. People may become discouraged with a lot of text on a webpage. Remember to boil down your text to bullet points or small areas of easily readable text; never make it uncomfortable to read, navigate or understand the mission of the product or service. It is necessary to guide customers through any process online to ensure that with little effort they can understand the benefit of your product or service.

People often ask me if sitemaps are worth doing. In response, I would not do a sitemap. I have noticed that sitemaps do not stimulate SEO. Furthermore, they often slow the process of the spider that is crawling your website. Make sure you keep in mind when building your website and navigation that your site is easy to understand and use. Make sure the most important information is in search engine readable text and on the home page of your website.

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