10 Tips for Planning an Outstanding Website

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When faced with the daunting task of planning what to include on your website and how to write the copy, here are a few tips that will make the task easier for you.

1. Visitor Friendly
The main thing to keep in mind is that your website needs to be visitor friendly. What this means is that your customer must be able to find what they are looking for easily and quickly. And that means great navigational system. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it's best to stick with it. It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.

2. Search Engine Friendly

Search engines try to list sites that contain good content, so you need keywords and phrases on your pages that best describe your service and products. For example, if you are a florist, use the words such as florist, online florist, virtual florist, wedding florist, florist in Sydney, florist on line, flowers, floral, bouquets, floral arrangements etc as many times as possible to ensure high search engine ranking. To find out what keywords your customers may be searching check out:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/
http://www.wordtracker.com

Once you decide on the keywords, use them in
(a) Your website's domain name
(b) The title of your page - This is displayed in the top bar of your browser window
(c) The heading of your home page
(d) The first paragraph of your home page
(e) Meta tags - Keywords, page title, description
(f) Titles of your graphics

Whilst it is important to use keywords as much as possible, it is also important you use them only if they are relevant and do not sound awkward. If you spam your keywords you may be penalised or even banned by some search engines.

3. Informational vs On-line Store

One of the first decisions you need to make is what type of website to have. Will it be informational only or will it be an on-line store or a combination of both? An informational website is like having an on-line brochure. It does not sell products directly to customers, but rather provides details of your business, its products and services and occasionally features a printable order form.

The other type of website is an on-line store. It is a virtual salesperson who potentially never stops providing presales information to your prospects - and then making sales to them.

4. Create a Plan
Before you start thinking about what to write on each page of your website, it is important that you create a plan, which lists all the pages you wish to include. Below is a list of the most commonly used pages:

(a) Home Page (First Page)
(b) Products / Services
(c) Contact Us
(d) Pricing
(e) Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After
(f) Frequently Asked Questions
(g) Response form such as "Subscribe" or "Enquiry" form
(h) On-line Magazine or Newsletter
(i) Resources/Articles
(j) About Us
(k) Guarantee
(l) Survey
(m) Events Calendar
(n) Search My Website Feature
(o) Return/Refund Policy
(p) Privacy Policy
(q) Site Map
(r) Copyright Information
(s) Links
(t) Media Information
(u) News
(v) On-line store

5. Cross-sell / Up-sell as part of your content

If a customer is looking for a particular product, offer them details of related products. By recommending other products, your customers will learn what else is available and in many cases it will translate to additional sales for you.

A company that does this exceptionally well is Amazon - www.amazon.com. Search for a particular book and you will find information on what other people who ordered this book also bought.

Make it as easy as possible for customers to complete an order by providing clear instructions. Ensure delivery costs are outlined before a customer begins the ordering process.

Similar Threads:

• 6 Tips To Secure Your Website
• Tips To Increase Website Conversions
• Planning An Effective Website
• Planning An Effective Website
• 10 Tips for Planning an Outstanding Website

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6. Focus on the customer and their needs

Rather than trying to "sell your business", let your prospects know how your product/service is going to benefit them. Emphasize the benefits and solve problems. Make this the focus of everything you write on every page of your site. Don't try to sell visitors your products or service, help them.

7. Remind your visitors
Remind your visitors they can print out your content. They may browse around your website while it's printing.

8. Use headlines and sub-headlines to grab visitor's attention

9. Offer value

Offer bonuses, free trials, discounts and prizes. List the dollar value beside each bonus. People will feel they're getting a good deal and it will increase the value of your product.

10. Spell check and grammar check your website

Ensure there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Check that all links are working and graphics displaying correctly.

If you are still struggling with where to start, visit your supplier's or competitor's websites. Be careful that if you use copy from their site that you do not infringe copyright laws. If in doubt, contact the author or copyright owner and ask for permission.

Your ultimate goal is to turn a visitor into a customer. On your website, this is done by providing premium content. Each page should be its own mini site. As you have no control over how a visitor enters your website, it is important they are able to easily work out what your business offers and navigate to other pages within your site.

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Unfortunately, it happens every day. Unscrupulous business owners steal the copy (text) or original images from others' websites and place them on their sites. It's unfair, it's immoral, but what can you do to stop it from happening? And what can you do if someone does steal part or all of your site's copywriting?

You have protection: automatic protection that's afforded by the U.S. Library of Congress. So let's start by reviewing what type of protection is available for your site and how to take advantage of it. Then we'll look at what to do if you've fallen victim to a content thief.

What Is a Copyright?

According to the definition provided by the U.S. Library of Congress, "Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of 'original works of authorship,' including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works." This includes the copywriting (text) on Web pages, the HTML source code, articles circulated on the Internet, and other original works made available for display or reprinting on the Web.

The U.S. Library of Congress continues by saying that your copyright protection goes into affect immediately after your work is created. In all actuality, you need do nothing to have copyright protection. However, the more steps you take in advance, the easier time you'll have in proving you are the authentic owner of the copyright should you ever have to do so.

To view the entire text of copyright law, visit http://www.copyright.gov/laws/. For just the basics of copyright law, visit http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html. For copyright law explained in layman's terms, visit http://www.whatiscopyright.org/.

How To Protect Yourself

There are certain steps you can take to "enforce" your copyright. These steps will not prevent someone from stealing your website copy, but they will go a long way in proving ownership and notifying would-be thieves that you intend to take action against violators.

Make Your Copyright Known - Put a copyright notice at the bottom of each of your Web pages. The notice should say something to the effect of: "All Content Protected by Copyright. All Rights Reserved, © 2004. Violators will be prosecuted." Notice the announcement of copyright includes the fact that all rights are reserved, that violators will be dealt with, and the current date. If you've held the copyright on your content for several years, make that known as well by stating, "All Rights Reserved © 2001-2004" or whatever the applicable dates may be.

File a Copyright Form - While not mandatory, you can file a copyright form with the U.S. Library of Congress. This is most helpful if you feel your website content is unlikely to change. If you constantly update or alter the text on your site, you may find it financially unfeasible to pay the fees. The U.S. Library of Congress will charge $30 for each copyright request you file. You can find the information needed to file a copyright at http://www.copyright.gov/.

Bookmark This Site - Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/) has a wonderful "play toy" that has been used successfully in proving copyright ownership. What was originally built to be a source of amusement has proven to be a valuable service. Archive.org's "Way Back Machine" archives old Web pages and stores them on its server. By typing in the domain name of any website, you can view past designs and copywriting for that page. Keep Archive.org's URL in your bookmark folder as a way to prove copyright ownership if you should need to do so.

What To Do If Your Content Is Stolen

The U.S. Library of Congress offers some advice on this matter. You can view the entire document at this link (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html). In essence, the U.S. Library of Congress instructs you to "serve written notice of the action with a copy of the complaint upon any person shown, by the records of the Copyright Office or otherwise, to have or claim an interest in the copyright."

It is recommended by the Library that your notification:

· be written
· include a physical or electronic signature
· identify the copyrighted work you are claiming infringement of
· include your contact information (phone number, address, email address, etc.)

If you get no positive results, or are told the offender has no plans to remove your content from their site, you can also use the techniques below:

Research the hosting company of the offender and contact them directly. This information is available from WhoIs.com (http://www.whois.com) and also from RandyCullom.com (http://www.randycullom.com/whois).

In addition, you can report offenders to search engines that they are listed on and have their sites removed. Here are the links for reporting abuse for many of the most popular search engines:

Google - http://www.google.com/dmca.html
MSN - http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyrtInfrg.htm

AltaVista - http://www.altavista.com/help/contact/search
AOL - http://www.aol.com/copyright/infringement.html
Yahoo - http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html

Good planning can help keep your content from being stolen. It can also help you be in the best position possible to fight against violators who think they are above the law. To be on the safe side, take measures now to not only protect your website copywriting from cyber thieves but to also plan a course of action to fight back should you ever have to.

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Do you have books, ebooks, articles, newsletters, websites, brochures, or other media that need to be proofread by a second set of eyes? The author, Cathy Kessler, is a proofreader (http://www.BusinessProofreading.com) and certified professional virtual assistant (http://www.KesslerVA.com)