Whether you opt for a hosted website, such as one provided by us here at Boosites, or you go for a self hosted website where you purchase a domain, hosting and then build your website using software, what actually makes a good website for the visitor remains the same.
The ingredients of a great website can be boiled down into a pot that contains eight things:
1. You have to have good content
The quality of your content will affect how interested Google is in your website. Even if you are building a hosted site purely to get a relevant link to your money site, the truth is that unless it offers value then it won’t get indexed and any link is worthless.
On top of that, a site that contains good content standard chance of converting visitors. Even if it is a link building site, why risk getting visitors who will simply bounce off when they find it relevant, poor quality or unreadable content?
Writing decent content that offers value to Google and the visitor is not rocket science and does not take a huge amount of time. By printing off a seed article and using voice recognition software you can create a new and unique article in around 10 minutes per 500 words, so 15 minutes you can create an article of a good length, that is unique and offers value.
2. After content comes optimization
Great content may rank in longtail searches. But to go that extra mile you going to have to do some search engine optimization.
This means making sure your on-site optimization is good. You need to interlink between pages, minimize duplicate links, work to avoid content keyword stuffing, and build good links.
In terms of links, a couple of decent links will do even a link building Web 2.0 site the world of good.
3. You must gain trust
When someone lands on your site they need to trust it. If they see a stock theme, poor images and rubbish text a will bounce straight. If you offer them something relevant to the search term they have just keyed in then you may get them to take action.
4. A modern website has to be responsive
Most modern themes, especially WordPress ones, are mobile responsive. Don’t go for a theme looks great on a desktop that does not resize onto other devices, you are just making user experience poor and forcing people away.
5. Your website needs to be fast
People expect websites to load quickly. Even after three seconds you start to get people losing interest.
Boosites uses two types of caching, plus a CDN, to deliver use a site as rapidly as possible.
6.Your website needs to get social proof
it’s not just about search engine traffic and trust nowadays, you need to have some social noise your website to be trusted and gain traction. Social proof is also a part of building a brand. Even if it is a linkbuilding site it should still fit in with your brand, otherwise anybody who lands on a site and then click through to your main money site will struggle to make the connection.
7. Seek good references
Try to get a link from a good neighborhood on the Internet. Just a single link, or even a non-linking citation can do your site the world of good and ranking it more strongly.
8. Don’t think this will be easy
Any website that ranks well in Google has had hundreds of hours of work going into it. Even if your site is a five page micro-site it has to be done properly, using linking internally, good quality content, good quality visuals and everything else we have talked about here.
Whatever the purpose of your website, and whether it is hosted or self hosted, makes no difference. The reality is that if you want your site to rank and be useful for years to come then you need to invest some effort in it in order for your time and money have been worth it.