Making the Site Visible
It is the responsibility of the Web site designer and, later, the Web manager to ensure that the site is visible to the target audience. Visibility is both a design and a marketing task. Marketing strategies include such steps as arranging reciprocal links, submitting pages to popular search engines, and joining a banner exchange program. Our main concern in this book, however, is with design strategies. Designers can enhance site visibility to a target audience in a number of ways, including the following.
Make sure to use domain-related keywords.
Do not hide the keywords in the background. Instead, place keywords prominently on top of the target page.
Compose a site name that thematically reflects the content.
For brick and mortar companies, use the business name as the domain name.
In other cases, create a domain name that is easy for the target audience to remember. For example, the name usabilityadvice.com is easy to recall by people looking for usability advice.
Include a statement on the site's home page reminding visitors to bookmark the page.
On the most frequently accessed pages of the site, have only internal links that send visitors to other key locations within the site. Links sending visitors away from the site should be placed only on secondary pages.
Provide multiple languages for a multinational targeted audience.