You Are Your Website Part 2: Being Organized
Is your business organized? How about your website? In part two of our ongoing series, learn how to make your website affirm your dedication to logic and order.
Is your business organized? How about your website? In part two of our ongoing series, learn how to make your website affirm your dedication to logic and order.
In Part 1, we discussed being useful and creating a website that embraced content and function to help the visitor. With Part 2, we will take a step back to analyze the content and make it work most effectively. The key to this is organization.
Your website can have the best content, tailored specifically for your audience, and search engines will find it. But, then what? After they read your article or press release, will they delve further into your site, or click away? Proper organization guides your visitors to learn more about your company, product, or services, and leads to closed deals and sales.
For example, you've worked very hard writing the content for a page describing the type of plastic used in your orange safety cones. An architect is looking for materials with those parameters and finds your page through an online search. After reading about the plastic, he's ready to buy...but how? With proper organizational methods, it's easy to find a link back to the main product. Without them, the architect has to search blindly to find out more. He may become frustrated and stop looking. It may give the wrong impression of your company. It may cost you a life-long customer and contact.
In the previous example, the site should contain clearly labeled links representing a hierarchy of information.
Example URL:
- Products
- Construction Products
- Orange Cones
- Plastic Specs
A well-thought out system for publishing your site is normally handled by nested folders, much like your personal computer. A general folder houses more specific information, grouped together by folder. A textual representation can be found on your website in menus, bread crumbs, or in the page's URL.
Example:
http://fakeplasticscorp.com/products/construction/cones/plastics.html
This shows the user that the site is organized on a logical set of principles. It is then easy and straightforward to browse with purpose and direction.
After all, if a company has an organized website, then their finances, contact management, and staff must be organized as well. After all, you are your website.