When doing business on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can make a website successful. Although the look is important, fancy websites don’t make sales.

There is much more to creating a quality website. To make it successful, you must create a website that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit it over and over again. In addition, it should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase.

Selecting a Website’s Niche

The first step toward how to make a website successful, will be to target it for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about wine, everything within it should relate to wine.

Selecting a Website’s Keyword Phrase

You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your webpage. For example, if your webpage is about ‘making wine,’ your best keyword phrase would be ‘wine making.’ You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage, as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is a very important step to make a website successful.

Using HTML Heading Tags

When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use th HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text displayed with heading tags. As the default text for the H1 heading tag is very large, you may want to use CSS style sheets to display the heading tags in the font style and size you prefer.

Using META Tags Within a Webpage

Another step to help make a website successful is to include META tags between the HEAD tags of your webpage. META tags help the search engines to know what keywords are relevant to the webpage. They are also used to tell the search engines what the webpage is about. Many search engines will display this description within the search results.

Backgrounds and Text

It is always best to display a webpage with a white background and black text, as this will make the text easy to read. Distracting backgrounds will make the text hard to read. A good rule of thumb is to just use common sense and keep it simple. This alone is a great way to help make a website successful.

Animated Graphics

If you’re using animated graphics, it is important that you use them sparingly. Graphics that continually flash are VERY annoying and may prevent your visitors from returning to your website in the future.

Navigational Links

It is very important to include good navigational links on every page. They should be displayed at the top, bottom, left or right side of your webpage. In addition, your visitors should be able to get to any webpage within your website within four clicks.

Webpage Layout

Always be consistent with your design. This is a very important step to help make a website successful. The layout for should be the same on each page. If you make it different, your visitors will become confused. In addition, it will make your website appear to be unprofessional. Your design should include the same layout, logo, and navigation setup on each page.

Spelling and Grammar

Always make sure you proof read and spell check your webpages for errors. It is also very important that it doesn’t have any broken images or links.

Important Webpages

When you launch your website, it is very important that you include the following webpages:

About
The ‘About’ page is used to tell your visitors about you and/or your company.

Privacy
The ‘Privacy’ page is used to let your visitors know what you do with their personal information, such as their email address.

Terms and Conditions
The ‘Terms and Conditions’ page should be displayed on your website for your protection.

Site Map
A ‘Site Map’ is used to help the search engines index your website more easily.

You can learn more about all of these pages by doing a search through your favorite search engine. They are very important and will help make a website successful.

Website Interactivity

Another way to make a website successful is to make it interactive. This can be done by including a targeted forum that compliments your website, a form in which they can subscribe to an ezine, a feedback form to enable them to give their opinion, or an informative blog in which visitors can comment.

Web Browsers and Screen Resolutions

When you begin designing your webpage, it is HIGHLY recommended that you install the most popular web browsers on your computer. This will enable you to see how your website will display in different browsers. You will find that it looks great in one browser and terrible in another. It would be wise to design your website to display properly in Firefox and then it should display properly in Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.

It is also important that you view your website through different screen resolutions. You can either open your webpage in your browser and then change your computer’s screen resolution, or there are resources online that you can visit, such as Any Browser, to test your website.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you can begin to make a website successful in no time.

About the Author: Shelley Lowery – If you want to learn how to make a website successful, visit Web-Source.net for a wealth of free website design tutorials, video tutorials, HTML codes, JavaScript codes, CSS codes, tips, tools and resources.

Optimizing web pages for search engines does not mean creating special pages for search engines. Optimizing web pages for search engines is often the same as optimizing web pages for web surfers.

If you do it correctly, your website will be attractive to both web surfers and search engine spiders. The following list shows nine factors that can improve the usability of your website as well as your search engine rankings.

1. You should have fast loading web pages:  Usability: Web surfers don’t want to wait for web pages. Search engine optimization: Search engines can index your web pages more easily. 
2. Your web pages should be easy to read:  Usability: It’s easier for web surfers to read your web pages. Search engine optimization: Near-white text on a white background and tiny text is considered spam by most search engines.
3. The contents of your web pages should be clearly arranged:  Usability: Clear headings, paragraphs and bullet lists make your web pages easier to read. Search engine optimization: Clear headings, paragraphs and bullet lists make it easier for search engines to find the topic of your web pages.
4. Your web page images should use the IMG ALT attribute:  Usability: Web surfers with images turned off and visually impaired visitors will be able to see the content of your images.  Search engine optimization: Search engines cannot index the content of your images but they can index the content of the IMG ALT attribute.
5. You should use custom 404 not found error pages:  Usability: If your 404 not found page contains links to other pages of your website or a search form then people might remain on your website.  Search engine optimization: Proper 404 error pages make sure that search engines index the right pages of your website.
6. Your website should be easy to navigate:  Usability: Clear and concise navigation links that are easy to find help your website visitors to find content on your site.  Search engine optimization: Clear and concise navigation links that contain your keywords make it easy for search engines to index all of your web pages.
7. Important content is above the fold:  Usability: Web surfers with small computer screens can quickly see what your web page is about.  Search engine optimization: The sooner your important content appears in the HTML code of your web pages, the more likely it is that it will be indexed by search engines.
8. Your web page titles are explanatory:  Usability: If web surfers bookmark your web pages, a clear web page title will help them to find it again.  Search engine optimization: The web page title is one of the most important SEO elements. It should contain your keywords and it should look attractive so that web surfers click on it when they see your web page title in the search results.
9. The URLs of your web pages are meaningful and self-explanatory:  Usability: It’s much easier to remember a web page like www.example.com/support than a web page like www.example.com/123123-werwc.php?2342234.  Search engine optimization: If your URLs contain your keywords, this can have a positive effect on your search engine rankings. Dynamic URLs with many variables can lead to problems with search engine spiders.

There are many more factors that influence the position of your website in Google’s search results. If you want an in-depth analysis of elements of your web page, check your website with IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer.