The world of website standards is constantly changing. With the introduction of new devices literally every year, the browsers that accompany them, and the varying screen sizes, you can never really know how someone will try and access your site.
We’ve mentioned before (as the web world has been noting for the better part of 2 years) that responsive design has taken a front seat in the web production process. Along with that, search engines have been fine tuning their methods for discovering the best relevant pages for search results.
Both of these new standards have made one thing and one thing only the most important part of your website:
Its Content!
Go ahead, “dumb it down!”
This may be hard to believe but site visitors and search crawlers are fairly similar. They both get lost if you throw too much at the page hoping that an abundance of information will “impress” the visitor. By eliminating the fluff and the minute details you will showcase what a visitor actually came there to see.
Smart content is a winner.
But you just said to dumb it down? Yup. Now make it mean something. Your page titles should reflect the content, the content should back up the title. Make sure your META data is relevant (and not stuffed with garbage) and concise. Use terms in your text that are hot and telling of what you are displaying. This will improve your searchability.
Content good at Yoga?
With responsive design becoming the standard for websites, it’s important to remember that every page, every piece of content, will be changed in some way between device sizes. Using calculated and targeted content will allow for that flexibility while imposing a level of importance on all the terms and phrases mentioned.
Too much of a good thing?
You love your business, what you do, and can talk for hours about it. Well not everyone has that kind of time and in the same way they can’t talk to you for hours, they also can’t spend hours filing through excess content to find the real important points. Keep it simple and to the point and you’ll keep the visitor’s attention.
Don’t let the machines take over!
A lot of times website managers think that by stuffing the website with tons of information they won’t have to field as many questions. Let’s not forget that at some point any good business or manager needs to establish a relationship with a visitor. The website should offer information, entice a visitor to reach out, and connect that visitor with a human being who can help them and start to answer more detailed information based on their needs. Do it for humanity.
Look, none of this is revolutionary and it’s been written by plenty of people. Don’t over think what should go in your site. It will keep it clean, on topic, relevant, and lend itself well to the responsive nature that the web is turning into.