Tips for Making a Great Website

When designing a website, it is crucial to make your site appealing, memorable and of course, functional. If a user does not get a sense of satisfaction from visiting your site in the first 10 seconds, then on to the next website they go with the sound of a mouse click. Do you want to build a credible, respected website for your company? Here are some simple, yet essential elements to designing a successful website that your customers will love as much as you do.

A Website Should Have Responsive Design

This is one of the most crucial, and yet overlooked elements in website design. Every great website should have a consistent flow through its pages. This can easily be achieved with a navigation menu that appears in the same location across all pages of the site. The navigation menu should encompass differentiated pages that are important to the user such as home, about us, portfolio, contact us, etc. It is important to keep navigational menus to a minimum, not exceeding more than five menu items. Font size and style should be consistent on a page, so that all content is easy to read. All paragraphs should carry the same amount of space between lines. When designing and organizing a site, one should act as the user and make sure that it is both easy to read and easy to navigate.

Your website should include your company’s contact information. Whether it appears in the header or as a separate “Contact Us” page, make sure it is highly visible. Contact information gives your website a sense of credibility and legitimacy. If your company or business has social media pages, link them to your site. Your website is the gateway to your business, don’t let users stop there. Allow them to check out your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts with a direct link to the pages. Having these links in the footer of your website across every page is ideal because users will be able to easily access them.

Are you ready to take your business’s website to the next level? Contact Cork Tree Creative today about our web design services. Let us help you create a website that is easy to use, engaging and effective. We also offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to get your company to the top of the list on search engines. Give us a call at 618-656-7333.

How to Make a Good Landing Page (The First Time)

One of the best ways to capture your audience's attention and keep them scrolling is by producing a landing page. When businesses add this to their websites, it immediately leads consumers to a certain product or service they are trying to sell.

A successful landing page generates sales and engages your audience. According to research, the average landing page conversion rate is around 10%. This is why creating and updating your page to feature new items and showcase any specials, coupons, or deals will drive sales. Although this may sound simple, building one takes research, planning, specialized insight, and a little intuition. Here’s how to land a landing page.

What’s a Landing Page Again?

A web page needs to inspire your target audiences to take some form of action. This is referred to as a “call to action”, or CTA. A CTA can be as simple as clicking on a link to learn more about a service or walking into a store to buy a product. Even uploading a social media post encouraging your followers to comment and tag a friend to score a free product is a CTA.

To maximize your visibility and rankings, integrate technical SEO techniques into your landing page and website. SEO gives your website a clear structure and makes it easier for Google to rank your page. Creating your landing page alongside a trusted marketing firm will elevate your brand awareness to advertise events, products, and services throughout your website. At Cork Tree Creative, we craft each page with marketing strategy and verbiage that will keep viewers engaged.

Here are some helpful tips we recommend when making an inspiring landing page.

1) Get cozy with your audience.

How well do you know what’s going on? Do you have any pages or posts that customers respond to more than others? Do a little digging, AKA market research. Search for high-performance pages and critically assess your audience’s actions. Use data tracking platforms like Google Analytics 4 to find important metrics like conversion and bounce rate, average session times, and the number of users visiting your landing page. Make sure to divide metrics by traffic source, so you can also pinpoint what’s really driving your sales.

2) Offer them something they actually want.

After talks with the financial, sales, and marketing departments, pull together a workable plan to reel them in. This can involve exclusive coupons, timed discounts on new product or services, or even just concise, helpful information they really need. If you want to build a newsletter or blog, the landing page can entice visitors by offering exclusive information about a product or service they may not know about yet, or that audiences tend to struggle with. If they’re intrigued by the content, odds are they’ll subscribe.

3) Put some meat on those bones.

Some businesses with one product or service may build a landing page that is the entire website. This appears as unreliable and a potential scam. Try to give your website depth. Make supplemental pages that go into detail about your product or service. Develop a simple blog that can stir awareness or provide helpful information that customers need to know. Landing pages are never supposed to replace the entire website, they’re more of a branding supplement to structured information, marketing, or sales campaigns.

4) Get to the point quickly.

Many people do not take the time to fully read websites, so the moment someone clicks on your website, you must hook them in. You essentially only have a few, crucial seconds (less than five) to get your target audience’s attention and keep it. Make sure your message is clear and concise. When you think you’ve finished crafting the messaging on your landing page, give the draft to a few people to edit and look over. Something you may find easy to understand may be confusing to someone who isn’t familiar with the digital marketing industry. Think of a landing page as a virtual flyer or sign, don’t bog your clients down with blocks of text or wordy descriptions. 

5) Show them your vision.

Images and videos are here to stay, so get used to it. Use visual elements in your landing page, because only text will send them away. Most people prefer visual over text. Make sure your graphic designer shows the landing page all the tender love and care it deserves.

6) Test the plan.

If you’re unsure which words to say, colors to use or images and videos to display, join the club. Narrow it down to two pages and AB test. Promote both equally, track metrics, and discover what your audience truly wants.

Still Need Help? 

Building a cohesive, relevant, and attractive landing page that converts the customers you want takes some well-directed and skilled effort. If you’d like specialized guidance backed by experience, our team at Cork Tree Creative can help. We have an analytical bunch of creatives that can swiftly draft and design a stellar landing page you can bring home to your parents. Just reach out, and we’ll get something started.

What Is Alt Text for Images?

Image alt text, which is short for alternative text, describes image details and its purpose on a website. It is also referred to as alt attributes and alt tags. You can find the alt text code within your website’s HTML code.

An image’s alt text may look like this:

<img src=“image.jpg” alt=“image description” title=“image title”>

or this

<img src="image.gif" alt="Image">

Alt text was initially created for the visually impaired to help identify online images. Screen-reading software reads this text aloud to its users. Alt text also appears in place of images on browsers that block them and shows up in place of its image when pages don’t load correctly.

In addition to making your site more accessible, alt text is read by search engine crawlers. It is important to develop a web design and format that optimizes SEO and crawlers. When ranking websites, crawlers view your images using this portion of code. It then decides the value of the image in relation to its page and your site overall.

Why Is Alt Text Important?

Whether you Google “Bluetooth speaker” or “Benjamin Franklin,” images appear in the search results. For years, Google has increased the importance of visual media for several reasons:

1.  Images add to the accessibility and usability of your site.
2. Most people are visual learners. Moreover, it is easier for people to grasp developed written content when it’s broken up by other types of media. Hosting high-quality and relevant images on your website encourages Google to view your site as reliable in its field and user-friendly.

Ultimately, good alt text should be descriptive. In a few words, describe what’s in the image and include any related keywords. If you’re unsure whether or not your alt text makes sense have it read to you with your eyes closed.

What Does Good Alt Text Look Like?

<img src="speaker.jpg"/>

<img src="speaker.gif" alt="">

These are examples of bad alt descriptions because they don’t include any actual alt text. If your image doesn’t need any alt text, consider adding it to your CSS.

<img src="speaker.gif" alt="speaker speakers small speaker home speaker wireless speaker Bluetooth speakers black speaker buy speaker">

This is an example of keyword stuffing in alt attributes. Keyword stuffing is widely regarded as a bad practice because most search engines evaluate it as spam.

<img src="speaker.jpeg" alt="black speaker">

This is a better example of alt text because it includes a one-word description of the speaker.

<img src="speaker.png" alt="small black wireless speaker sits on table">

This is an even better example of an alt attribute for the speaker image because it provides a brief illustration of the image. A few, wisely-chosen words can detail even simple pictures.

Tips for Writing Effective Alt Text

Writing better alt text is a key on-page SEO tactic that improves online users' access to your site and experience. Use the tips below as guidance when writing alt titles and descriptions for your site’s images.

1. Write useful descriptions for effective images.
   Choosing relevant images is as important as writing informative alt descriptions. When looking at a page, Google’s algorithms attempt to weigh the value of the content. Sites that rank highly in search results are the ones Google believes are the most helpful to the user.
2. Use keywords but avoid stuffing titles and descriptions.
   Alt descriptions are an excellent space to enter keywords for your business. Likewise, changing the file name of an image to a related keyword could help boost its search engine optimization performance. However, filling those spaces with as many keywords as you hope to rank for could end up hurting your website instead.
3. Keep descriptions short (or use longdesc=“”).
   Alt descriptions shouldn’t be longer than 125 characters to accommodate most screen readers. If you do need more space to describe the image, use the HTML code longdesc=“”.
4. Move appropriate images or graphics to CSS.
   Typically, images and graphics that are a part of your website’s design should be kept in your CSS instead of the HTML. There, site crawlers won’t read the image or analyze its alt attributions.
5. Add alt text to button images.
   If you’ve got buttons that direct visitors to “Learn More” or “Buy Now,” you have images that need alt attributes. These descriptions should include the function of the button, allowing screen readers to direct users to the appropriate call to action. For example, using the image to the right to buy men’s dress shirts, the alt text might read, “button to buy men’s dress shirts with ties”.

At Cork Tree Creative, we are skilled and experienced in writing for SEO to optimize alt text, improve user- experience, and gain higher search engine rankings. Our SEO and strategic planning services work together to successfully optimize your images.